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XATEIT PUBLISHEB BY 



Companion to I 

The Language of Flowers, 
THE BOOK OF FLOWERS, 
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THE LIFE OF 

THOMAS JEFFERSON, 

THIRD PBESIDENT OF THE TTSTITED 
STATES : 

With parts of his Correspondence, 
never before published, and notices 
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vil Government, National Policy, 
and Constitutional Law, by 
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THE PARLOUR SCRAP BOOK 

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CAMPBELL'S LETTERS from 
THE SOUTH. 1 vol. 12mo. 



SKIMMINGS; 



OR, A 



WINTER AT SCHLOSS HAINFELD, 



IN LOWER STYRIA. 



BY 

CAPTAIN BASIL HALL, 

ROYAL NAVT, T. B. S. 



f.- 



PHILADELPHIA: 

CAREY, LEA AND BLANCHARD 

1836. 







■:'l ., 



PRINTED BY 

HASWELL AND BARRINGTON, 

ST. JAMES STREET. 



WITHDRAV*;4 
MAY • 1919 




W^U^^ 



T. 



Having on three diflferent occasions made excursions 
on the Continent, under circumstances of considerable 
variety, it lately occurred to me that selections from my 
journals might perhaps be favourably received, either by 
persons who had never visited the scenes described, or 
by those who had already seen them, but might choose 
to view them again through the eyes of another. 

I accordingly set to work to skim off such parts of my 
notes as, either from the buoyancy of the expression, or 
from retaining a portion of the freshness of original in- 
terest, had floated to' the surface. 

But I soon found these skimmings accumulate under 
my hands in much greater quantity than I had anticipated, 
or than, I feared, might be relished by others. 

In this dilemma, I bethought me of the well-known 
device of the Aeronauts, or Luftschiffer— literally sky- 
sailors — as the Germans, with their usual pithy quaintness, 
call them ; and resolved to send off a pilot-balloon to 
ascertain how the wind set. 

The following episode was accordingly selected for 
publication ; and if, when let loose, it take the right 
direction, or, in other words, if it meet with a current of 
public favour, I may perhaps venture to cut the ropes of 
the larger work, now in the course of inflation, and trust 
the whole to the same friendly notice. 

Paris, 20th May, 1836= 






»V.X«;-.^ • 



■#. ^* f 



1>«t -. ••-jWJm*- 



CONTENTS. 



Page 

CHAPTER I.— THE INVITATION, . . . , 9 

n.—THE SCHLOSS, . . , , . 24 

HI.— THE COUNTESS, . . . , , 29 

IV.— THE IRON COFFIN, . o . . 37 

v.— THE NEIGHBOURS, ... 44 

VI.— THE RIVAL GUESTS, . . . , 52 

vn.— THE ARCHDUKE JOHN OF AUSTRIA, 63 

Vin.— THE GERMAN LANGUAGE, . , . 74 

IX.-^THE DAY AT HAINFELD, . . . 82 

X.— THE WORSER, ..... 99 

XL— THE BORE, ...... 108 

Xn.— QUACKERY— ABSOLUTISM, . . 119 

Xni.— THE IMPERIAL TOBACCONIST, . 129 

XIV.— THE GERMAN BED, . . . , 135 

XV.— SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE, , 140 

XVL— THE FESTIVITIES OF HAINFELD, , 159 

XVn.— A CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS, , 168 

XVni.— THE ALARM, . . • . . 178 

XIX.— THE CATASTROPHE, , . . .186 

XX.— THE VAULT, . . . . , ,195 

XXL— THE COUNTESS AND WALTER SCOTT, 205 



SCHLOSS HAINFELD; 

OR, 

A WINTER IN LOWER STYRIA. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE INVITATION. 

It was a bright sunny morning, near the end of April 
1834, when, accompanied by my wife and family, I left 
Rome for Naples. The climate of the " Eternal City," 
which is grateful to most constitutions, had not proved so 
to mine j and, for the first time in my life, I had fallen 
into low spirits, and indolent habits. The endless ruins 
of ancient Rome — the wonders of the Vatican — the forest 
of churches — the gorgeous palaces — even the great Colos- 
seum itself, and almost St. Peter's, one by one, had faded 
into indifference before my languid observation. This 
was not health ; and my physician, who had much expe- 
rience of the Roman climate, — so fair and treacherous, — 
declared, that nothing would do me any good but change 
of air. 

Never was learned opinion so quickly verified. At 
first starting, the warm sun and the clear sky had no charms 
for me. And this strange feeling, which admitted the 
good, but felt only the gloom, so long as I continued in 
the immediate vicinity of Rome, gradually, but percep- 
tibly, began to evaporate as the carriage ascended the 
gentle slope of the ancient volcanic mountain of Albano. 
By the time we had gained the height of several hundred 
feet above the dome of St. Peter's, judging from its ap- 

2 



10 THE INVITATION. 

pearance in the distance, I felt as if a load were taken oflf 
my lungs, and the nice mechanism which gives activity 
to the breath, and keeps up the flame of life, was once 
more free to move. I became enchante-d with the blue- 
ness of the sky — the sharpness of the lights and shades ; 
and as the gentle puffs of wind crossed our path, I caught 
myself stretching forward to inhale their new and invi- 
gorating freshness. Long before reaching Albano, which 
stands, I should suppose, about a thousand feet above the 
level of the Tiber, I became so hungry and happy, that 
had not some traces of rheumatism tied me by the leg, 
I should infallibly have leaped from the carriage, and 
scampered up the hill before the party to order dinner. 
On arriving at Albano, new objects of interest met our 
view. Our windows looked full on the open sea — the 
beautiful, the classical Mediterranean — nowhere, except 
at Naples, so fertile in associations as near the coast we 
now looked upon. The beach might be distant about ten 
or twelve miles ; and between us and the sea lay a broad 
flat belt of alluvial, marshy soil, scantily cultivated, and 
only here and there dotted with a bright, white cottage. 
Nearer, and where the land gradually rose towards the 
volcanic focus, the scenery partook of a more fertile and 
varied character; being not only cast into all sorts of 
shapes by the freaks of ancient earthquakes and eruptions 
of lava, but covered with villas, gardens, vineyards, and 
olive orchards, every where glowing with the astonishing 
verdure of an Italian spring. 

Peeping through the foliage we could perceive many 
remnants of ancient buildings, which greatly contributed 
to characterize the scene. Some of these maintained 
more or less their old shape of towers and arches — others 
merely showed, by huge piles of brick and sculptured 
blocks of marble, what they might have been. Far off 
to the left, along the shore, in the south-eastern direction, 
we could just distinguish the island of Ponzo, and still 
farther off, we were told might be seen, in days of pecu- 
liar clearness, the island of Ischia, which forms the north- 
ern horn of the Bay of Naples. 

Our admiration of this beautiful prospect was interrupt- 



THE INVITATION, 11 

ed by the necessity of attending to the arrangements of 
the journey. As we travelled veturino, we had to stop 
for a couple of hours at Albano ; during which time sun- 
dry other carriages arrived, and either passed on smartly 
with post horses, or stopped to take rest as we had done. 
Amongst these there was one which particularly engaged 
our attention ; and with that sort of feverish curiosity 
which proverbially belongs to travelling, I set about try- 
ing to discover who the people were with whose appear- 
ance we had been struck. Great was our pleasure on 
learning that here was no other than our amiable and'ac- 
complished Polish friend, with an unpronounceable name, 
the Countess Rzewuska. We lost no time in repairing 
to her apartment to renew so agreeable an acquaintance, 
though it was but for a moment ; for it appeared we were 
passing on opposite tacks, as she was coming from Naples, 
and we from Rome. No sooner had we entered than, she 
exclaimed — 

"Oh how fortunate! It is only a day or two since I 
received a letter from Germany, containing a message to 
you ; and had we not now fallen in with each other, I 
might never have been able to deliver it. My corre- 
spondent supposed we were still at Rome together, forget- 
ting that at this season the travellers who crowd there in 
winter, scatter themselves in all directions, the moment 
the breath of Spring opens the season. This letter," con- 
tinued she, pulling one from her reticule, "contains a 
message from the Countess Purgstall, an elderly Scotch 
lady, who, having married forty years ago a nobleman of 
Austria, has resided in that country ever since. I am de- 
sired to ascertain if you be the son of Sir James Hall, one 
of her earliest and most intimate friends in Edinburgh? 
And if so, as I believe to be the case, I am requested to 
invite you, in her name, most cordially, to pay her a visit 
at her country place, the Schloss, or castle, of Hainfeld, 
near Gratz, should you think of taking the homeward 
route through Styria, instead of following the beaten 
track of the Tyrol." 

It was impossible such an invitation could have been 
^iven to travellers less hampered by plans ; for we mada 



12 THE INVITATION. _ 

it a constant rule to be giiided by circumstances as they 
arose, and not to entangle ourselves by previous arrange- 
ments which might or might not prove suitable when the 
time came. Thus, the map of Europe was always before us, 
where to choose our place of rest, or rather unrest, and 
Mrs. Starke our guide. Having looked at the various 
routes, studied them, and made our calculations as to 
time and place, we came to the resolution that, provided 
we received, in due season, a somewhat more specific in- 
vitation, it might be no bad sport to visit a German castle, 
as something fresh, and out of the ordinary course of jog- 
trot travelling. In order to prevent all mistakes, I thought 
it best to communicate at once with the lady herself. 

I accordingly wrote a letter, mentioning the number of 
which our party consisted, giving a sketch of our plans 
for the summer, and requesting farther information about 
roads, and the best seasons for travelling in Germany. 

To this letter I received two answers, the second being 
written under an erroneous impression that the first was 
misdirected ; and as there are several parts of these letters 
which help to elucidate the character of our future hostess^ 
I shall venture to make free extracts from both. As yet 
our purpose of paying her a visit was quite undecided 5 
but we felt our interest in the project, and our curiosity 
as to the character and situation of our distant and unseen 
friend, greatly heightened by these communications. I 
should mention, that all we knew of the Countess Purg- 
stall was, that she was sister to Mrs. Dugald Stewart, 
widow of the celebrated writer on moral philosophy; 
that she had married a German nobleman, late in the last 
century, and proceeded with him to Austria, and that she 
had never revisited her native country. We had also a 
vague recollection of having heard that she had been ex- 
tremely unfortunate in her family, and was left solitary 
in the world ; moreover, that she was remarkably clever, 
and rather eccentric. But we formed no just conception 
of this extraordinary person from any such glimpses of 
character as these letters, or other accounts afforded us. 
On reading them now, it is true, when familiar with the 
whole topic, we can discover many touches which might 



THE INVITATION. 15 

have given us some insight into a matter which eventually 
interested us a great deal more sincerely and deeply than 
we could at first have supposed possible. The Countess's 
first letter ran thus — it was dated 7th May, Hainfeld : 

" I have this moment, my dear sir, received your let- 
ter, dated Albano, 21st April. I am now so unaccustom- 
ed to a pleasing sensation, that I tremble while I tell you, 
it will be doing me a very great favour indeed if Mrs. 
Hall and you will bestow a visit upon me. Your little 
darlings surely need repose. I beseech you to let them 
find a home for a few weeks in Hainfeld ; the house is 
large ; there are thirty-nine rooms on this floor all com- 
pletely furnished, though in the mode of the last cantury; 
the air and water are good ; the country is rich, well cul- 
tivated, and varied enough to be pleasing. I dare not 
promise you amusements ; I am a widowed woman cut 
ofi" from the tree of life ; but if a cordial welcome can ren- 
der solitude supportable, I am sure you w411 find it here. 
Hungary is only three hours distant from this — it is a 
country little known. You will be well received by my 
neighbours on the frontier, and find the people a race dis- 
tinct from any in Europe. 

" As to this road, I can assure you it is excellent — in 
every respect preferable to the one by Tyrol. The first 
English travellers by accident took the road by Tyrol ; 
this made it the fashion, and ever since they have flown 
that way like a flock of birds. The Alps and lakes of 
Styria are fully as interesting as those in Tyrol, and as 
yet unknown to the English, and Gratz is not inferior to 
Innspruck. Besides, you can have an advantage in tak- 
ing this road I am sure you will know to value — it is to 
be acquainted with the Archduke John, who lives in a 
quiet, simple style at his iron works, and will receive 
you with pleasure. He is wonderfully well informed; 
has vast practical knowledge, and his manners are truly 
pleasing. As a man he has few equals— as a prince he is 

a phenomenon. 

* * * * * ^ 

" I dare not speak of the home of my youth. Thirty- 



14 ' THE INVITATION. 

five years of absence have spunged me from the remem- 
brance of those dearest to me ; but if you graciously visit 
me, you will draw back the veil and give me a glimpse of 
things still, alas ! too dear to me. 

" If you will write me a note and let me know when I 
dare hope to see you, it will be a great pleasure to me. 
The Governor of Milan, Count Hardegg, will please you 
much, and also our countryman. General Count Nugent, at 
Trieste. I fear to lose a post, and send you these hurried 
lines, praying you to believe me your truly obliged, and I 
trust soon to say grateful friend, 

" C* PURGSTALL.^^ 

The second letter is fuller, and still more characteristic. 

« My Dear Sir, 

" With a grief which I cannot express, I discovered a 
few minutes ago, on looking over the little register of my 
letters, that I had addressed my answer to yours not to 
Rome, but to Naples. It was a degree of absence worthy 
of your good grand uncle, of absent memory ; but I have 
not, alas ! the apology of genius to plead. My mistakes 
are owing to a very different cause of late — to the state of 
my health. For more than three years I have been the 
victim of rheumatism, or what some physicians are pleased 
to call the tic-douloureux-volant. This cruel disease has 
torn my nerves in pieces, and when I am agitated, as I was 
when I received your letter — so dearly welcome to me — 
I became quite confused. Pardon, my dear sir, my seem- 
ing delay in answering your letter. I wrote instantly, but 
my silly letter is literally poste restante in Naples. I 
hope these lines will reach you safely, and convince Mrs. 
Hall and you how unfeignedly happy I shall be to see you 
and your little darlings. It will indeed be most gratifying 
. to me if you will allow the infants to repose here for a few 
weeks, and find in Hainfeld the quiet of home. Your ex- 

* It may be right to explain that this C. stands for Countess, and 
not for the initial of a Christian name, hers being J. A. It is a gen- 
eral custom on the continent for persons of rank to write their title 
as a part of the signature. 



THE INVITATIOIf. 15 

cellent Scotch nurserymaid will revive me with letting me 
hear once more the language of my heart. She shall ar- 
range all here exactly as she wishes, and, I trust, make the 
dear children comfortable. The house is very large ; there 
are thirty-nine rooms on this floor. Not only your fami- 
ly, but any friends you choose to bring along with you, 
can find place enough. The country is truly healthy ; the 
soil rich and well cultivated, and the hills and distant 
mountains covered with forests. The people resemble 
their oxen — they are diligent and docile. There are few 
neighbours, except in Hungary (three hours' distance from 
this) J and Hungary is a country little known and deserv- 
ing your attention. Styria is also a country little known, 
owing to the singular fancy or fashion of the English al- 
ways to fly between Vienna and Italy, by the way of Ty- 
rol. Kotzebue says, ' The English carry their prejudices, 
as they do their tea-kettles, all over the world with them.' 
This, in general, is merely an impertinence ; but in what 
respects the Tyrol road, it holds true ; our road is in many 
respects preferable. 

" You inquire as to the state of the roads. They are 
excellent. The Eilwagen, a kind of diligence, takes re- 
gularly fifty-five hours between Trieste and Gratz, and 
twenty-five hours between Gratz and Vienna. As man 
and beast in Austria move discreetly, this, with the aid of 
your post-map, will show you the true state of the roads. 

"The tenure of property in this country is very difier- 
ent from the English ; and I would fain, were it possible, 
excite your curiosity as to Styria. The constitution of the 
American States interested you. Why should not ours do 
so ? The country is divided into circles ; mine contains 
4200 souls. My bailifi' collects all the taxes within the 
circle ; manages the conscription ; the police; the criminal 
justice in the first instance, the property of minors, &c., &c. 
He must have passed his trials as an advocate, and I must 
pay him and his assistants, or what is called my chancery. 
I defy the public afiairs, in as far as this goes, to cost less 
to a government. The said bailifi" also collects the domi- 
nical, or what is due to me, and manages the landed pro- 
perty, which, as we have no farming, is kept, according to 



16 THE INVITATION. 

the Scotch phrase, in our own hands. The first crop of 
hay was housed yesterday, so if you travel with your own 
horses, good food is ready for them. After the wheat and 
rye are cut down, buck- wheat is sown, which can ripen 
even under the snow. It is the food of the peasantry, as 
oatmeal was formerly of the Scotch Highlanders ; but the 
crop from the best ground is sold off to pay the very high 
taxes. The people are good and docile. The noblesse, 
owing to the dreadful war, &c., are mostly on short com- 
mons. We have no poor, which, owing to the question in 
England respecting the poor-laws, is deserving of being 
noticed. No man is allowed to marry till he can prove he 
is able to maintain a wife and children ; and this, with the 
law of celibacy of the clergy, and the caution required of 
the military* — almost an act of celibacy — are checks on 
population, which would make the hearts of Mr. Malthus 
and Miss Martineau burn within them for admiration. 
The result is, the entire demoralizing of the people. The 
mask of religion helps nothing. At the last grand jubilee, 
in the next parish, seventy -two pairs of virgins adorned the 
procession, dressed in white, and covered with garlands of 
flowers. In eight months forty-four of them were in the 
family way. Madame Nature is not a political economist, 
and she does not let her laws be outraged with impunity. 

" As another motive to visit Styria, there is a physician 
at St. Gothard, three hours from this, who works all the 
miracles ever wrought, except raising the dead. Were I 
not virtually dead, I would consult him. He is a Home- 
opathic ; forty-nine thousand sick have been with him 
since November, and all believe in his infallibility. The 
Alleopathic school endeavour to suffocate the system of 
Hanneman, but in vain. A question of such consequence 
to the human race, and so easily decided on the spot, is 
surely deserving of your investigation. 

" I am ashamed to send you so tedious a scrawl, but you 
will pardan me, for you know it is out of the abundance 

♦ No officer in the Austrian army is allowed to marry, unless he 
previously deposites a sum of money in the hands of Government 
for the maintenance of his widow and children in the event of his 
death. Thesum varies with the rank of the officer. — B. H. 



THE INVITATION. 17 

of the heart the mouth speaketh. May I trust you will 
induce Mrs. Hall to 'unfatigue' herself and her little 
angels, in this Tadmore in the wilderness ? I have noth- 
ing, alas ! to oflfer you all but my hearty welcome. God 
knows it is sincere. In haste, for I fear to lose a post. I 
bid you, my dear sir, farewell. — 11th June. My address 
is simply Gratz, N. B. There is a respectable library 
here.^' 

These letters very nearly made us decide to take Styria 
in our way to the North, but we had still much to see in 
Italy, and elsewhere. It is not my present purpose, how- 
ever, to enter upon these adventures, though some of them 
proved highly interesting. The following answer which 
I sent to the Countess's pressing invitation, will suffice to 
show what we were about, and in what mind we looked 
forward to the proposed visit. 

" Naples, 1th July, 1834. 

" Mr Dear Madam, 

"You need have no further remorse of conscience about 
the address of your letters, as both of them reached me in 
safety. In my turn I must apologize and explain the rea- 
son of this tardy reply. We have been ^bsent from Na- 
ples on a cruise to Sicily and Malta, in a vessel of this 
place, hired expressly for the voyage ; and although we 
have returned more than a week, we have not yet come to 
such a fixed arrangement for our future plans as to enable 
us to say, with much precision, at what period we shall be 
in your neighbourhood. In the mean time, I must no 
longer delay writing in my own name, and that of Mrs. 
Hall, to thank you for your kindness and attention, and to 
say that we shall be most happy to avail ourselves of your 
hospitable invitation on our way north, if we can possibly 
arrange to do so. We are at present busily employed in 
* seeing up ' or ' demolishing ' Naples and its beautiful 
contorni ; but, in the course of this month, or, as the In- 
dian ships say, 'in all July,' we hope to complete our sight- 
seeing labours. It is probable that towards the middle of 
September we shall be advancing upon your castle. As the 



18 THE INVITAriON. 

time draws nearer, however, I shall give you due no- 
tice of our approach. Our party will not occupy more 
than three or four of the three dozen apartments which 
you speak of, and I have no doubt we shall all greatly en- 
joy our visit. 

" I shall endeavour to profit also by your advice with 
respect to Styria ; indeed, we have no especial love for the 
Tyrol, and should only have followed the beaten Cockney 
route, from having generally observed that the said Cock- 
ney, somehow, almost always finds out the things best 
worth seeing. Your local authority in this matter, how- 
ever, will certainly guide us, unless unforeseen circumstan- 
ces carry us too far out of the way. For my part, I have 
always so much difficulty in acquiring correct geographical 
ideas with respect to any country I have not visited, that I 
can seldom decide which route it is best to take, till the 
country in question is near at hand. By the time we 
reach Venice, we shall be better instructed on many such 
points, and it will certainly be no small comfort to see 
something new on the continent. It is true I am not wri- 
ting a book ; but I often sigh for some bit of grouud to tread 
upon which has not been ploughed up by the merciless 
pens of preceding travellers. In this poor exhausted Italy, 
countless classical scholars, men of wit and fancy, blues, 
Roman Catholics, Protestants, poets, painters, and philo- 
sophers, with ten thousand others, of all persuasions, ca- 
pacities, politics, tastes, and experiences have worried and 
scourged the land till it will scarcely bear a blade of decent 
grass, or even a thistle for any stray donkey that may be 
passing. But your account of Styria does stir up my ink- 
horn ; and if I jlon't make a quarto out of it, the fault is 
mine ! 

" Seriously, I shall be very glad to see the state of 
manners you allude. to, and I look forward with pleasure 
to our meeting in the castle of Hainfeld, there, as you say, 
to 'unfatigue' ourselves; a process very suitable, I assure 
you, after the toils of sight-seeing in the south of Italy at 
midsummer, more especially as old Vesuvius is now in 
full eruption, and his sides streaked with fiery torrents. 



i 

THE INVITATION. 19 

^* I feel flattered and gratified by the favourable opinion 
expressed by your neighbour of the work I wrote On 
America. I have had, in my day, my share of abuse; 
and very well pleased I was with such notice. When an 
author takes any particular line, especially in politics, he 
ought to consider the censure of those he is entirely op- 
posed to, as the best acknowledgment that he has not 
missed his intended point — that he has not mistated his 
own views. For the rest, he must be content with the 
approbation of one or two judicious fciends, merely to 
satisfy him that he has not, in his zeal, done harm instead 
of good to the cause he wishes to defend." 

To this letter I received the following answer when at 
the delicious Baths of Lucca, the most delightful summer 
residence in all Italy. There are so many traits, explana- 
tory more or less of the peculiarities of our future hostess, 
scattered up and down these letters, which will assist in 
introducing her to the reader's acquaintance much better 
than I could do myself, that I venture to give them al- 
most entire. -They wi\\ show also how great her anxiety 
was to engage us, at all hazards, to come to her, and thus 
serve to explain subsequent passages in the curious history 
of our intercourse. 

" 12th August, 
" My Dear Sir, — I had the happiness of receiving your 
letter of the 7th July, in course; and a few minutes ago, 
your second dear letter, dated the 26th. It was only my 
fear of teazing you with my scribble-scrabbles, as Wini- 
fred Jenkins would call them, that prevented me from 
answering the first directly. Mrs. Hall and you knew, I 
thought, my sincere Welshes, and had promised to bestow 
on me the long-wished-for enjoyment of hearing once 
more the language of my heart. I hoped, and still hope, 
you will find repose agreeable, particularly for your little 
darlings, after such long and fatiguing wanderings. I 
have been very anxious on their account, for the heat this 
summer is unexampled, and for infants it is dangerous. 



20 THE INVITATION. 

Even here the thermometer of Reaumur was at 31° in the 
shade, or 102° of Fahrenheit. 

" Tyrol is certainly worth seeing, particularly for cock- 
neys who never saw a mountain; but as no one of them, 
by any accident, ever took the Styrian road, they could 
form no judgment on the subject. Gratz, though a town 
of no consequence, has finer environs than any town I 
know, Florence excepted; and it has a merit which, lucki- 
ly for its inhabitants, has not been discovered by the En- 
glish, who arc on the saving establishment — it is the 
cheapest place to live at in Europe. 

" Tlie Archduke John has founded a museum at Gratz, 
the geological specimens of which, mostly collected by 
himself, will give you a just idea of the bones of our 
country. My horses shall be in waiting as soon as you 
tell me the day and the number necessary to conduct you 
safely to poor desolate Ilainfcld, and any friends of yours 
shall be heartily welcome; only I pray you to prepare 
them for our half-savage state of existence. Vulgar meat 
and drink in plenty, and an undiscovered country, is all 
they dare expect. I am sure Venice will be very inte- 
resting to you. I used to consider a fine ship under sail 
as the proudest work man could boast of; but when one 
sees this city of palaces sitting on the sea, and smiling at 
the waves in tlicir fury, every other wonder of the world 
is annihilated. Its rapid destruction is saddening. — If it 
is painful to see a once-lovely woman becoming decrepid, 
what is it to see Venice sinking into its watery grave .'* 

" You do perfectly well to go by steam, for you can 
sup at Venice, and breakfast at Trieste. The coast-road 
is very tedious, and there are often bad fevers about. I 
am sure you will like the commander-in-chief at Trieste, 
Count Nugent, also Mr. Thomas Thomson Hay, a first- 
rate merchant there, who, from his kind attention to me, 
I am certain must be a good man. He will give you het- 
tcr information respecting the commerce, &c., of Trieste, 
than those who govern there. At Adelsberg, three posts 
on this side of Trieste, there is a vast cavern, which, when 
illuminated, is, they say, magnificent. A singular kind of 
fishes is found in a stream that runs through these caves. 



THE INVITATION. 21 

They have a comb on their heads like that of a cock; they 
have no eyes, yet, when exposed to the light, they seem to 
suffer. Near Adelsberg, but about a post off the road, is 
a lake called the Cirknitzer See. By means of five or six 
tunnels, the water leaves it once in^he year, and it is pos- 
sible to cut down corn, hunt, and fish on the same ground, 
during the same season! When the waters return, they 
bring a number of fish, often from six to eight pounds 
weight, out of their subterranean abode. 

"At Lay bach, two roads part for Gratz — they are equal- 
ly good; but that by Cilly is twelve posts; the other, by 
Klagenfurt and Upper Styria, is nineteen posts; and by 
this road one sees mountains, brothers and sisters to the 
Tyrolese; and those who love them can satisfy the senti- 
ment. The great iron-works of Vordernberg, where the 
Archduke John resides, are about a post from Leoben. 
The country from Bruck to Gratz is extremely romantic. 
Your late arrival, alas! will only show you the nakedness 
of the land, though autumn, as it retires, may still, as Sir 
Walter expresses it, leave ^ its mantle's fold' on the fo- 
rests; but ' the shroud of russet dropped with gold,' is a 
poor indemnity for the summer's beauty you have left 
behind you. All things pass! 

-¥ its * * * * 

"I am ashamed of so tedious a letter. During the thirty- 
six years I have lived in this country, I have forgotten, in 
a great degree, English; and I see so many new words in 
a Review Mr. Hay lent me a few days ago, they quite 
confuse my poor head. It is a dreadful fate to survive all 
one lived for, as I have done, — even the language of my 
mother country. My spirits are failing me to-day, and 
the very flies will not allow me to write; they nestle be- 
tween my spectacles and my eyes, and torment me. I 
pray write soon, my dear sir." 

There was one thing about this letter which puzzled us 
a good deal, especially when we came near the spots she 
describes, and the routes which we had to choose amongst, 
after landing at Trieste. While she enumerates several 
objects of interest which lay in our way, she omits all 

3 



22 THE INVITATION. 

mention, or even allusion to the great quicksilver mine of 
Idria, the second in importance of its kind in the world, 
as I learned lately in a conversation with Humboldt. At 
all events, as it is by far the most curious thing, and best 
worth seeing, in that part of the countr}^, we failed not to 
visit it in passing. But it was not till long afterwards that 
I ascertained that the good old Countess had purposely 
avoided mentioning Idria, in the hope that we should pass 
it without examination. It seems she had learned that the 
miners employed in handling the quicksilver are liable to 
various diseases; and she took it into her head, that, as 
our curiosity might tempt us to explore pretty deeply 
into the mine, and to touch the specimens of the earths 
and ores containing the insidious poison of this extraordi- 
nary metal, we might become ill and die, or, at all events, 
be detained before reaching her! Now, as her every 
thought and feeling was occupied at that moment in mak- 
ing out this grand point, she saw nothing unreasonable in 
concealing from us, so far as she could, even an object of 
such surpassing interest as the mines of Idria. 

Before reaching Hainfeld, however, we kept up a tole- 
rably active correspondence. In answer to hers of the 
12th August, I wrote a rather free and easy epistle, to 
which there speedily came an answer, which showed that 
so far we had not mistaken the good old lady's character. 
Her increasing and almost feverish anxiety to draw us into 
her castle, is well shown in the following letter: — 

'^September the 6M.-— The JLhermometer of Reaumur 
is now at 27° (Q2^°^ Fahrenheit,) not a drop of rain falls, 
so all is burnt up. Water fails every where, but here it 
is good and enough. 

"I had last nightj'my dear sir, the pleasure to receive 
your thrice welcome letter. I cannot express how proud 
and happy I shall be if I can induce you to undertake a 
voyage of discovery into this our terra incognita. As I 
write very unintelligibly, I have desired my bailiff to trace 
the roads from Trieste to Gratz after a map, with the 
name of each post, and a cross at the houses where it is 
fittest to sleep at. The inns in Germany are less like the 



THE INVITATION. 23 

Italian than the old Scotch ones. The first mark is at 
Adelsberg, a short day's journey ; but I thought you would 
like to explore the vast cavern and the little fishes there. 
If any thing fails you, speak with the captain of the circle, 
Compte Brandais, in my name. His angel of a wife was 
dear to me from her infancy, but she died so lately I can- 
not write to him. 

" There is no country so full of strange caverns and 
underground rivers, as the one you will pass through. 
One of the rivers comes above ground, full grown, near 
Laybach. Jason and his Argonauts passed the winter in 
Lay bach. In the spring they took their ship to pieces 
and carried it to the sea. You Will laugh at this, but our 
antiquarians will give you irrefragable authority for it 
You will see by the marks I am extremely glad you pre- 
fer the shortest road to Gratz. It is the decision of wis- 
dorn, and I have no doubt you will find her ways are 
pleasantness. Your darlings will, I am sure, be perfectly 
safe under the care of their German governess, who, I 
trust, will find herself perfectly at home; while your pre- 
cious Scotch nursery maid and I will understand one ano- 
ther famously. Such a person as she is ceases to be a 
servant, she is a friend. She can dine with Mr. and Mrs. 
Bailifi', or where she wills. 

* * * * ' -Jif ^ 

" I must warn you about the custom-houses — they are 
one of our plagues. The money you need on the road 
are pieces of twenty kreutzers, with what is called good 
and bad paper money. Ten florins good make twenty- 
five bad. In all Germany the English are considered as 
fair game, particularly in the inns. Our innkeepers do 
not dispute, like the Italians, for the character of the 
people is reserved ; and they will not come down a far- 
thing in their bills. It is marked on your map whether 
the stages are single or double posts, and I have always 
seen the driver paid as one horse ; but unless they are 
contented they drive slowly, and the loss of time and the 
expense of the inns is more than the difierence. If you 
will have the goodness to write me a line on arriving at 
Trieste, the horses shall be sent to Gratz to wait for you. 



24 THE SCHLOSS. 

" Hainfeld is about six hours from Gratz. Your sweet 
infants will be sadly disappointed when, instead of a 
splendid dwelling, they see a building like a manufactory ; 
the grounds in culture to the door, and the cows lodged 
within a gunshot of their bed-chamber. At first they 
will be afraid of me, for I am now like nothing they ever 
saw, except the picture of Mademoiselle Endor in an old 
family Bible. Alas ! the ravages of time are equally 
visible on its possessor, and upon poor desolate Hainfeld ! 
Farewell." 



CHAPTER n. 



THE SCHLOSS. 



When we hear of a German castle, our imaginations 
represent to us a huge dark looking fabric, on the edge of 
a frowning precipice, and wellnigh hid in the shade of 
forests, some centuries older than the building which has 
long outlived the fame of him wIto raised it. Accordingly, 
as we drove along from Gratz, we pleased our fancy by 
speculating on the wild scenery of our friend's mansion, 
which, from the grandeur of the neighbourhood of Gratz, 
we felt fairly entitled to expect, would not belie the ro- 
mantic character 'which belongs to such spots. 

We had, it is true, seen drawings of Hainfeld, but almost 
all drawings tell such lies, that there is no believing them 
when they speak truth. It is indeed part of an artist's 
confession of faith, to avow his love for the imaginative, 
over what he is pleased to call the vulgar reality ; and 
sooth to say, these gentlemen generally take good care, 
that if there be any vulgarity in their nominal representa- 
tions, it shall not consist in too close a resemblance to the 
things represented. 

Be this as it may, we had formed no very correct notion 
of the place we were going to, and strained our eyes with 



THE SCHLOSS. 25 

some anxiety in the direction pointed out by the Countess's 
coachman, as we wound our way amongst the hills, eager 
to catch a sight of the castle before the daylight had quite 
ebbed away. Nothing, however, could we see in the 
smallest degree like a castle, even when the hills spread 
themselves out into a broad, flat, richly cultivated valley, 
with a small sluggish stream, the Raab, stealing its way 
along the middle of the bottom land, or haugh, where its 
course was indicated by a double line of willows, alders, 
and other thirsty trees, the only embellishments of this 
kind which the thrift of the farmers had left in the centre 
of the landscape. 

At length four little sharp turrets, indicating the four 
corners of the long-looked-for Schloss, or castle, came in 
sight, and presently afterwards, the whole building which, 
to do its looks no injustice, and in the words of its pro- 
prietor, resembled nothing so much as a manufactory. 
Instead of standing boldly on the top of a high rock, the 
family mansion of the Purgstalls was placed in the flattest 
part of a flat valley, far from the abundant trees and rich 
scenery of the adjacent high grounds, as if in utter contempt 
of the many picturesque situations which might have been 
selected on the same property. 

As we drove under the old archway which admitted 
us to the quadrangle in the interior, we might have fancied 
we had entered the court of a Spanish or Portuguese 
convent. There was just light enough to show us the 
corridor on each of the four sides, arched all along and 
open to the sky, with a row of doors leading to what in a 
convent would be the cells, but which here were of course 
much larger apartments. A worse description of archi- 
tecture for so rigorous a climate as that of Germany could 
not well be imagined, and we learned afterwards, that it 
had been introduced by an Italian architect who saw the 
country only in summer. The natives of the day, having 
little or no acquaintance with other countries, and no 
great ingenuity of their own, quietly adopted the fashion, 
to the permanent discomfort of themselves and of all suc- 
ceeding generations. 

Two of the corners of the quadrangle were filled with 

3* 



26 THE SCHLOSS. 

broad staircases by which the corridor was gained, and at 
the bottom of one of these we were received by the Coun- 
tess's head servant, who welcomed us with the air of a 
cordial landlord, and even reproached us good-humouredly 
for our delay, by saying they had all been anxiously 
looking out for us several days. " But better late than 
never," added he, in a dialect between Italian and French 
— for he was a Piedmontese ; and having been a soldier 
of Napoleon's, had seen the world, and learned many 
languages. In one of these, I forget which, he then 
begged to know if we should prefer being shown to our 
own suite of apartments, or at once to the reception room 
of the Countess. Of course we preferred paying our 
duty without delay to the mistress of the mansion ; and^ 
therefore, though covered with dust, and rigged in our 
well-worn travelling garments, we begged to be intro- 
duced forthwith. 

If our curiosity as to the castle was great, much greater 
was our curiosity respecting its proprietor. Neither were 
our imaginary conceptions of our hostess much more 
accurate than those we had formed of the Schloss itself. 
All that we had heard, had prepared us for something 
out of the common ; and as we approached the spot, some 
curious circumstances came to our knowledge. At Trieste, 
for instance, on inquiring whether there was any chance 
of the Countess being absent, we were told with a smile, 
that this was not very likely, as the old lady never quitted 
her bed. And in a letter which I found lying for me at 
Gratz, she begged me to warn the children of her helpless 
situation. In one of her letters, she said she was like 
nothing in the world but a mummy, — adding, " for the 
last three weeks, a very sick one ;" and truth, bids me 
avow that our excellent hostess did not look the character 
amiss. " What a pleasant thing would it not be,'^ said 
the Countess one day, " could we put life into a mummy, 
and make it tell us about the Ptolemies, and their Pyra- 
mids and Hieroglyphics ?" Yet I question if we did not 
find it even more interesting to hear an intelligent old 
person like the Countess Purgstall speak, from personal 



THE SCHLOSS. 27 

knowledge, of many of the most eminent characters of 
the last century with whom we had far closer sympathies. 

Be this as it may, we found our aged friend as we had 
been told to expect, in a huge antiquated bed, with faded 
damask curtains, in a room feebly lighted, and furnished 
in the stj'le of a hundred years ago. Her wasted form 
was supported by half a dozen pillows of different shapes 
and sizes, and every thing about her wore the appearance 
of weakness and pain. Every thing, I should say, except, 
her voice, expression of countenance, and manners, in 
none of which could be traced any symptom of decay or 
weakness. Still less might any feebleness be detected in 
what she said, for nothing in the world could be more 
animated or more cordial than her welcome. She shook 
hands with each of us, as if she had known us all our 
lives, and expressed over and over again her joy at having 
succeeded in bringing us to her castle. 

" You must be sadly tired, however,'^ she said, " and 
the children must be almost ready for their beds, so pray 
show that you feel at home by selecting the rooms which 
suit you best. There are enough of them I trust ; and 
presently, the dinner which has been ready for you an 
hour or two will be served up." 

Off we set, under charge of the Major-Domo, Joseph^ 
who, in obedience to the magnificent orders of his hospi- 
table mistress, had lighted the stoves in three times the 
number of apartments w^e could by possibility occupy, in 
order, as he said, that we might pick, and choose. In 
most old castles which I have seen, the rooms are small and 
comfortless, but in Hainfeld, they were large and commo- 
dious ; and though the furniture was n^t abundant, or at 
least not so superabundant as in modern mansions, it was 
all good and even elegant in its old fashioned heavy way. 

In the principal room, which had been prepared for 
us, and which was the best in the castle, there stood, in 
rather tottering condition, a handsomely got up bed, at 
least eight feet wide, furnished with crimsoned silk cur- 
tains, bordered with silver lace two or three inches broad, 
surmounted by a massive carved cornice, fringed with 
silver tracery, in the same taste as a rich but heavy em-* 



28 THE SCHLOSS. 

broidery which figured at the head of the bed. In like 
manner the walls were hung with crimson satin ; and 
round the room were placed old fashioned sofas with curl- 
ing backs, and arms like dolphin's tails, embossed .in gold, 
and all padded with elastic cushions wrought in flowers. 
Fancifully carved writing tables, supported by not less 
fantastically shaped legs, with snug places for the feet to 
rest upon, stood here and there. Bureaus, chests of 
drawers, and queer looking toilet tables groaning under 
the weight of huge mirrors, completed the furniture. Of 
course there were plenty of chairs — heavy old fellows, 
with high puffy seats, cane backs, and whirligig arms, 
comfortable enough to sit upon, but not easily moved 
from place to place. Most of the rooms were ornament- 
ed with grotesque work in plaster, in high relief, on the 
roofs; and such of the walls as were not hung with 
hideous staring antediluvian family portraits, were painted 
in fresco, with battle pieces, hunting scenes, and other 
embellishments in the same luxurious but antiquated 
taste. 

I must not omit to mention one important article of 
furniture, which was found in every room in the castle, 
high and low, namely, an enormous porcelain stove, white 
and highly glazed, reaching almost to the ceiling, in a 
succession of handsome stories, not unlike some Chinese 
pagodas I have seen in other climes. The fire is intro- 
duced into these vast ovens, as they are well called in 
German, not by an opening into the room, but by a door 
which opens into the corridor. Early in the morning, a 
large wood fire is lighted in each stove, and such is their 
mass, that long after the fire has burned out, the heat is 
retained, and the apartment kept warm till the evening, 
when another heating is given it which suffices for the ' 
night. In a climate of great severity, such means of heat- 
ing rooms are said to be indispensalDle ; but to English 
tastes, accustomed to the cheerfulness of an open fire, and 
not at all accustomed to the close heated air of a German 
stove, the fashion is one which it requires a long expe- 
rience to render tolerable. Madame de Stael wittily says, 
^' that the Germans live in an atmosphere of beer, stoves, 



THE COUNTESS. 29 

and tobacco ;" and truly, the more one sees of the country, 
the less exaggerated does this sarcasm appear. The an- 
noyance of beer one may sometimes escape, but the 
misery of tobacco smoke and choky stoves is inevitable. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE COUNTESS. 

Miss Jane Anne Cranstoun was born in Scotland 
about the year 1760, of a noble family, both by the father's 
and the mother's side; and she enjoyed likewise the ad- 
vantage of being allied to the aristocracy of talent, by the 
marriage of her sister with the celebrated Dugald Stewart. 
Her own abilities an attainments improved these advan- 
tages, and won for her early in life the intimate friend- 
ship of Sir Walter Scott ; and long before he was known 
to tiie public, she had discovered the secret of that won- 
derful mine of intellectual gold, which has become in our 
day the established currency of fashionable literature in 
every part of the civilized world. In the latter stages of 
our acquaintance with her, we came upon some curious 
circumstances connected with this intimacy, which shall 
be touched upon in due season. In the mean time I may 
mention, that we made out almost to demonstration, that 
one of the most original and spirited of all his female 
characters, no less a personage than Die Vernon must 
have been sketched from this very lady. 

In the year 1797, Miss Cranstoun married Count Purg- 
stall, a German nobleman of the highest family in Austria, 
with whom she proceeded to Lower Styria, where his 
large estates lay ; and she never afterwards returned to her 
native country. During the fierce wars which Napoleon 
waged with Austria, her husband served in the army in 
posts of distinction, until, towards the close of those disas- 
trous periods, he was taken prisoner under circumstjjsnces 



30 THE COUNTESS. 

SO peculiarly distressing, that his health gave way, and 
after in vain trying the climate of Italy, he died in 1811. 
Madame Purgstall was now left with an only child, a son, 
who lived only a few years after his father's death. No 
sooner was he gone, than upwards of seventy claimants 
as heirs-at-law pounced on the noble estates of the ancient 
family of Purgstall, and the poor desolate widow had 
enough to'do to establish her right even to that port-ion of 
the property which had been settled upon her. The dif- 
ficulties she encountered in arranging these matters, and 
the severe distress to which she was reduced by innume- 
rable and apparently interminable lawsuits, might have 
broken the spirit and wearied out the resolution of a less 
vigorous mind. With all her fortitude, indeed, she seems 
to have been almost subdued ; and but for the generous 
assistance of the late Lord Ashburton, a near connexion 
of hers, she must in all probability have sunk under the 
joint weight of poverty and law proceedings. 

She was now, by these successive bereavements, left 
quite alone in a foreign land; and having lost every being 
who was dear to her, she appears to have had scarcely 
any other object while she remained in the world, but to 
cherish the remembrance of those who were gone — to 
feed her grief, in short, rather than to overcome it. In this 
spirit, accordingly, she permitted nothing to be changed 
in the castle. Every article of furniture stood. exactly in 
its old place — not a walk amongst the grounds was altered 
— not a tree cut down — not a book shifted in the library. 
So that the castle of Hainfeld and all its old inmates, all 
its old usages, went on, or rather went hot on, but re- 
mained as if arrested by the frost of its mistress's grief, in 
the very position they occupied at the period of tnat last 
and crowning disaster, her son's death, which obliterated 
the house of Purgstall. 

In former times, we were told, the Countess had been 
the gayest of the gay, and the most active person in the 
country, both in body and mind. But she soon sunk into 
a state of inactivity ; and by considering it a kind of duty 
to those she had lost, to make the worst of things, instead 
of narking the best of them, she greatly aggravated the 



TftE COUNTESS. 31 

hopeless and forlorn nature of her situation. One of the 
effects of this indiscreet course of mental discipline was to 
undermine a constitution naturally robust; and presently, 
in addition to her other misfortunes, gout, rheumatism, 
and tic douloureux, with other inward and painful com- 
plaints, took their turns to torment her. Amongst the 
strange fancies which formed part of her singularly con- 
stituted mind, was a firm persuasion that all medical assist- 
ance was useless in her case, and indeed, in most cases; 
and thus, unquestionably, she allowed some of the diseases 
which, preyed upon her to acquire a much greater head 
than they might have done had they been treated "secun- 
dum artem.^' Be this as it may, she presented to the eye 
a miserable spectacle of bodily suffering and bodily decay; 
but these were probably rendered more conspicuous from 
the undiminished vigour of her intellects — the freshness 
and even vivacity of her disposition, — the -uniform suavity 
of her temper, and the lively interest which, in spite of 
herself, as it should seem, and her resolution to be unhap- 
py, she continued to take in the concerns of the external 
world. 

I should have mentioned, that at the time we first saw 
the Countess, she had been confined to bed three whole 
years — to the very bed on which her son had expired se- 
venteen years before; and from which, as she said with too 
much appearance of truth, she herself could never hope to 
rise again. Fortunately, her complaints had not attacked 
her eyes nor her hands, so that she could both read and 
write. Neither was she in the least deaf, and her powers 
of speech were perfect — that is to say, her articulation was 
perfect, for as to her- language, it was made up of a strange 
confusion of tongues. The most obvious and predomi- 
nant of all was good honest Scotch, or rather classical 
English with a strong Scotch accent. Along with this 
was mixed a certain portion of German, chiefly in idiom, 
but often in actual words, so that we were at first occa- 
sionally puzzled to know what the good old lady would 
be at. Her Erencli was a singular compound of all these 
dialects. But in whatever language she spoke, her ideas 
were always so clear, and so well arranged, and her cjipice 



32 THE COUNTESS. 

of words, however mispronounced, so accurate, that after 
we had learned the cause of the seeming confusion, we 
never failed to understand her. 

What surprised us most, on first making the Countess 
PurgstalPs acquaintance, was her wonderful cheerfulness; 
as this was evidently inherent, and not the result of effort, 
and was constantly sustained, it imparted by reflection to 
all of us, young and old, a spirit of vivacity which inva- 
riably accompanied us while we remained in her room, 
and made those periods of the day which we passed by 
her bedside by far the most agreeable of the twenty-four 
hours. Her conversation, like her spirits, never flagged, 
it ranged all over the world, and dealt with every possible 
topic under heaven. She had mixed in the society of 
some of the first men of the day, not only at home but 
abroad; and as she possessed a memory of uncommon te- 
nacity, she could relate anecdotes by the dozen, of almost ' 
any body one had ever heard of, from Bonaparte and the 
Emperor Alexander to the peasants of her own estate 
who had campaigned under them, or fought against them. 
Or she would relate stories of Sir Walter Scott's first 
essays in literature, tell about Schiller and Goethe, or de- 
scribe Haydn and Mozart's playing on the piano-forte. 
But it was not on such stirring themes alone that she was 
amusing and instructive; every thing she touched, how- 
ever trivial or uninteresting in other hands, derived an 
•agreeable point and useful purpose from her manner of 
handling it. Not her great friend Sir Walter had a more 
ample store of anecdotes, and these never came in awk- 
wardly, but always so appropriately, that you might have 
thought sometimes they were made for the sole purpose 
of illustrating the subject under discussion. Yet, in spite 
of this boundless fertility, her conversation was merely 
sprinkled with anecdotes, not overloaded with them, "like 
an over-plummed plum-pudding," as was remarked of a 
famous story-teller. She had no particular wish to talk, 
however, for she delighted in nothing more than in hear- 
ing the opinions of others; and she possessed the rare 
merit of showing, in all she said, that she was speaking 
for j^ie sake of the subject, and for that of the person she 



THE COUNTESS. 33 

was addressing, rather than for the sake of advancing any 
notions of her own. Nor was there ever the least show 
of heat or impatience in her discourse, except when she 
was defending some friend, or expressing her contempt of 
some unworthy personage, or questionable conduct which 
she thought it right to expose. 

In the course of this narrative I shall have occasion to 
describe more particularly the nature of the intercourse 
which gradually established itself between this extraordi- 
nary old lady and the..viDi;riou^r^ie»Trit^^ family; for 
she engaged almo^'^^^uf time and' ^t'fepiiQn, and won 
the warm affectiomlvof the^SUS^^%ty, ff-ij^ki^pur grave 
selves down to siy little ^(^-^ Qni^mm<d^Y old, who, with 
his Scotch maid, used to pass many holirs of evql^ day in 

her room. '^^^'^ <?tr C* 

Her anxiety to ge\:^iJS,iiMC 1^'^ bailee is sufficiently 
shown in the letters which I Hive^gwen in the first chap- 
ter, and what I have said above will make it obvious that 
her chief reason was, to be relieved from the melancholy 
sort of solitude into which circumstances had thrown her. 
For, although she had a host of acquaintances, she had 
scarcely any intimate friends; and although people came 
from far and near to visit her, she met few who entered into 
her melancholy feelings — -still fewer who understood her 
peculiar ways of thinking — and certainly none who could 
duly sympathize with those early and deep-rooted national 
associations, which had not only lost nothing of their force * 
by the contact of foreign manners, but which a long course 
of severe misfortunes had rendered only the more dear to 
her. 

Her prejudices, it may be supposed, were many; and 
these, so far as her adopted country was concerned, were 
greatly aggravated by the bitter circumstances of her own 
private life, independently of the horrible state of warfare, 
bloodshed, and military licentiousness of every kind to 
which nearly the whole country, and especially her own 
fruitful district, had been repeatedly a prey, under her 
own eyes. So that, as there was little in her past life 
since she had left her native land, which could afford any 
pleasing retrospect, and as she had ceased to take much 

4 



34 THE COUNTESS. 

interest in the present state of the government under 
which she had suffered so much, it was not likely, I may- 
say it was scarcely possible, that she should attach herself 
strongly, or indeed derive much comfort from any of the 
native families within her reach, even supposing them to 
have had the inclination, or, what was still less probable, 
the power of devoting much of their time and attention to 
her comforts. I may add, that, although she had no mo- 
tive which could induce her to wish to live, all her earthly 
blessings, as she said, having been taken from her, yet she 
had the greatest horror at the idea of dying alone, without 
a friend to close her eyes, and under the exclusive care of 
servants. 

All these things, and others to which I shall afterwards 
advert, excited in her the most vehement desire to esta- 
blish in her castle an English family, who should devote 
their time chiefly to her, and whose tastes, habits, lan- 
guage, prejudices, and so forth, might, in the main, be 
found to fall in with her own. That any such family could 
be found who should permanently settle themselves under 
her roof, was manifestly beyond the reach of ordinary 
chances; but in her ardent way of viewing things, I have 
no doubt she formed some such expectation in our case, 
when she first learned that we had it in our power to pay 
her a visit. Still less do I doubt that, after she had fairly 
got hold of us, and found us suitable, .she never meant we 
* should escape from the castle. In this view she set about 
every species of incantation to detain us, and we, in turn, 
long quite unconscious of any such serious purpose on her 
part, naturally applied ourselves to the study of her com- 
forts. The details of our intercourse will be seen by and 
by; but I shall merely mention just now the first specific 
instance in which we had it in our power to be of use to 
her, and to "reciprocate," as my friend Jonathan would 
say, the Countess's good offices. 

The personal fortitude of the poor old lady was so great, 
that even in her severest fits of pain she betrayed none of 
her sufferings to us, fearful, as we afterwards learned, that 
she might thereby disincline us to come near her. But ^ 
there was one particular twitch of pain to which she was 



THE COUNTESS. 35 

subjected so often, that we could not fail to remark it, and ' 
this, with her keen eye, she soon discovered, and much 
regretted. 

One of her multifarious maladies was rheumatism in the 
right shoulder, and this had either been brought on, or 
was confirmed, by the necessity she was under of stretch- 
ing back her hand to ring the bell, the cord of which hung 
at the head of the bed. Had her patience not been some- 
thing far beyond that of ordinary mortals, this most pain- 
ful and frequently-recurring exertion must have worn it 
out; and even as it was, she never rung the bell without 
saying something, though in a gentle manner, indicative 
of the suffering it cost her. 

Upon studying the matter a moment, I saw how this 
item in the long category of her evils might be greatly di- 
minished, if not entirely removed. But I said nothing to 
her, till I had walked to the neighbouring village of Feld- 
bach and purchased a few fathoms of cord, with a nail or 
two. Next day I waited till her ladyship, having occasion 
to ring, made the usual good-humoured lamentation about 
the horrid bell. 

"Will you be good enough, Countess, to let me remedy 
this evil ?" I asked. 

" Oh, it's impossible,'^ she said, "it has been so for these 
three weary years that I have lain here, stretched, as you 
see me, and tossed, as Gay has it, ^on my thorny bed of 
pain.' ^' 

" Well, only let me try," I replied ; and having previous- 
ly concerted with Joseph the butler to have a ladder in 
readiness at the door, it was introduced forthwith, and, by 
mounting to the cornice, I speedily attached a new bell- 
rope to the wire. The lower end of this rope I fastened 
by a nail to the floor, and then to the middle part of it at- 
tached another cord, which, being pulled tight in a hori- 
zontal direction, was tied to one of the bed-posts, at the 
height of four or five feet above the Countess's head. Fi- 
nally, I tied a string to this horizontal cord, in such a way 
that the end, formed into a loop, hung before her, and with- 
in a couple of inches of the place where her right hand 
generally lay ; the whole being so contrived that, by the 



36 THE COUNTESS. 

simple pressure of her finger, without raising the arm, and 
by scarcely moving her hand, the bell could at any time 
be sounded, and that more effectually than was formerly 
possible even by the exertion of all her force, and at the 
cost of much bodily pain. From that day the rheumatism 
in her shoulder gradually diminished, and before a fort- 
night elapsed, it had entirely left her. 

Of a piece with this was another little contrivance of 
mine, for which she was almost as grateful, and which I 
applied as soon as she told me about one of her most con- 
stant distresses. 

She was much troubled with a cough, especially at night, 
and this rendered it absolutely necessary that she should 
have recourse to her pocket handkerchief every ten mi- 
nutes or quarter of an hour. The helpless nature of her 
situation made it indispensable that an attendant should 
remain at all times near her ; but as she could not sleep, or 
even rest when not asleep, if there was a light in the room, 
it became necessary every time the handkerchief was miss- 
ing — -which was almost as often as it was required — that 
the bell should be rung, and the sick-nurse with her candle 
summoned to hunt for the said unfortunate pocket-hand- 
kerchief. 

" Now,^' sighed the Countess, as she told me all this, 
"there is an evil beyond even your nautical resources to 
remedy.'^ 

" Is it ?" I cried, catching hold of a bundle containing a 
quarter of a hundred quills just come from Gratz, and 
stripping off the red cord which I have observed in all 
countries is used by stationers for this purpose, I made one 
end of it fast to the loop of my recently-established bell- 
rope, and to the other I fixed the corner of the Countess's 
pocket-handkerchief. 

" Now,^' I exclaimed, " you have only to put out your . 
finger, catch the cord, and in the darkest night pull in your 
handkerchief, as you would do a fish at the end of a line." 

The poor Countess was in ecstasies of gratitude, but she 
said nothing to the sick-nurse, who, falling asleep in the 
evening, and not being disturbed till the morning, fancied, 
on awaking, that her mistress must be dead^ for such a night 



THE IRON COFFIN. 37 

of repose, they both declared, neither of them had passed 
during the three years of her attendance ! 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE IRON COFFIN. 

The cordiality of our reception made us feel truly at 
home from the first moment of our entering the castle ; and 
the Countess, after apologizing for not doing us the ho- 
nours in person — as if it had been a thing she could have 
helped — begged us to select our own hours for breakfast, 
dinner, tea, and supper. "I have secured a good cook for 
you," she said ; "and you will find abundant store of all 
kind of eatables, in a plain way ; and the cook, as well as 
all the servants, have orders to consider you as their mas- 
ters, so it will be your own fault if you do not arrange 
matters to your mind." 

Thus invited, we took the liberty of naming the reason- 
able hour of four for dinner, instead of the very barbarous 
hour — as it seemed to us — of twelve, or even of one or two, 
as some fashionable families in that neighbourhood have 
ventured to make it. Breakfast, in almost all parts of the 
continent, is a wretched affair, and. we found it invariably 
cost us and all the household so much trouble to get up 
any thing like a respectable morning meal, that we often 
passed it by in travelling, and took our cup of coffee and 
scrap of bread. in silent despair. 

On passing through Gratz, for example, the capital of 
Styria, on our way to the Castle, we stopped at the princi- 
pal hotel ; and having reason to think, from the astonish- 
ment of the people at our demands, that they had never 
before seen an English family, we took great care to in- 
struct them on the subject of breakfast. But after waiting 
for three-quarters of an hour, and despatching three se- 
veral express missions to the kitchen, the waiter, fancying 



38 THE IRON COFFIN. 

he was performing wonders, entered the room, literally 
with a jug of tepid water, one cup, and six tea-spoons ! 

We could not afford to do without breakfast, however, 
at Hainfeld, though we had but small hopes of succe^, 
even with all the authority of the Countess to back our 
resolution, 

Joseph, the Countess's master of all work, was fortunate- 
ly soon broken into the oddity of our ways, though it was 
long ere we succeeded in getting an adequate allowance of 
plates, knives, and forks. After selecting the most suita- 
ble apartments for sleeping-quarters, the next things to look 
out for were sitting-rooms — because, although the Countess 
expressed a strong wish to have some of us always with 
her, it was clear that her state of health, to say nothing of 
our own habits, would render it impossible to convert her 
bedroom into our drawingroom, after the manner in which 
her kindness suggested. Under the pilotage of the major- 
domo, Joseph, we set out accordingly to explore that wing 
of the Castle which faced the south-west, and lay on the 
opposite side of the court from that containing our bedroom 
suite of apartments. At the extreme left, or southern end 
of the wing, lay the Countess's own room and those of her 
attendants — the noisiest, the coldest, and the least conve- 
nient in the whole establishment— inasmuch as her bed 
stood exactly over the arched entrance to the Castle ; and 
the pavement of this entrance being sadly broken up, every 
cart or carriage that arrived made a noise as if the Schloss 
were tumbling about our ears. It was quie't enough, how- 
ever, for the Countess that her son had died in this room, 
to make her put up with this and any further amount of 
annoyance. The bare proposal to have her removed to 
some one of the nine-and-thirty other apartments on the 
same floor, threw her into extreme agitation. 

Next to this sacred chamber came a small anti-room, 
crammed with grotesque oak and ebony furniture, and 
hung round with small pictures. Then followed a commo- 
dious, warm, and well-lighted library, richly stored with 
German and French books, besides a valuable collection of 
alassical English works, mostly — with the exception of the 
Waverley Novels — ahout half a century astern of the pre- 



THE IRON COFFIN. 39 

sent taste. Adjacent to the library, we came upon the only 
really comfortable room in the castle, a distinction which 
it owed to the circumstance of its possessing an open fire- 
place — a very rare phenomenon in any part of Germany — 
and with this exception, I believe totally unknown in the 
remote province of Lower Styria. It was of the kind called 
a Franklin, being half stove, half fire-place, and had been 
placed there many years before by Lord Ashburton, who- 
wisely thought that a winter in Styria, without the sight 
of a fire, must be a dreary affair. 

We at once fixed upon this little room as our evening 
snuggery, where we took tea when our party was not too 
large ; when company came, the library was used, until 
the winter fairly set in. 

The next apartment contained a billiard-table; then 
came a small dining-room, and, at the end of the whole a 
larger supper hall, which we occupied only on high days 
and holidays ; of these — strange to say, considering the 
condition of our hostess — we had not a few before we 
disentangled ourselves from the enchantments of this 
strange castle. 

Having fairly established ourselves within doors, we 
yielded to the wish of the Countess, and made sundry 
little excursions to the most remarkable places in the 
neighbourhood, in order, as she suggested, to see the 
country before the beauty of the foliage was all gone, a pre- 
caution the more necessary, as the summer had been one 
of unusual heat and drought, and the autumnal tints and 
attendant decay were thereby antedated many weeks. 

The first object of curiosity on many accounts, was the 
castle of Riegersburg. It had been for centuries the an- 
cient abode of the renowned Purgstalls, and had passed 
from them only on the death of the last male possessor 
of the name, the poor Countess's only child. In old times 
it had proved a fortress of such strength, that the Turks, 
when they conquered and overran the greater part of the 
country which now forms the Austrian dominions, never 
made any impression upon it ; and it is even said, they 
never dared to attempt its capture. It resembles Edin- 
burgh Castle wonderfully, though it stands rather higher 



40 THE IRON COFFIN. 

above the plain — if plain it can be called, which plain is 
none — for a more waving, rolled about country I never 
before looked over, than that which surrounds Riegersburg, 
and extends to the foot of the Rhetian Alps. It may be 
added, that a more richly wooded, and, at the same time, 
industriously cultivated, and better peopled country could 
not be seen. For wherever the plough does not move, 
the ground is clad with trees, so that scarcely a nook is 
leftunoccupied,exceptwhere rich green patches of meadow 
land in the valleys, or sunny knolls on the sides of the 
hills, are kept apart for the numerous cattle to graze upon. 
Almost all the wood is what is called natural, and being 
kept solely for fuel, is rarely allowed to attain any great 
size ; whether from the favourable nature of the soil and 
climate, or from the inherent beauty which belongs to 
nature when let alone, I know not, but nothing could be 
more thick and luxuriant than these woods ; and Autumn 
having by this time drawn his many-coloured brush across 
the picture, the landscape looked as if the sky had lost its 
hold of the rainbow and sent it in showers over the ground 
beneath. 

The interior of the castle possessed a very different and 
more melancholy kind of interest ; and we could not help 
feeling what a contrast there often is between the best and 
strongest, and most enduring of human works, and the 
most \Gramon, and, as it were, careless productions of 
nature. The scenery about Riegersburg is as young and 
fresh and vigorous as ever, revelling in eternal successions 
of beauty — while the gigantic castle, many parts of which 
are cut out of the living rock, or built of huge masses of 
stone, bound together with bars of iron, and all destin,ed 
"to last for ever," according to man's vain boast, is silently 
but rapidly yielding before Time's scythe ; the effect of 
whose touch, I think, is often more evident upon such 
strongholds than it is upon those which possess less of 
what is termed durability. The most melancholy thing 
of all in such places, is the cold air of desolation which 
reigns in the empty halls, the total want of use for the 
magnificent apartments, and the mixture of splendour and 
shabbiness, of past wealth and present poverty, which 



THE IRON COFFIN. 41 

implies that the abode has changed from high hands to 
low ones. In the principal room stood the state-bed of 
the ancient lords of the castle; but the tattered satin 
curtains, the tarnished gold of the heavy fringes, and the 
worm-eaten posts and crumbling cornices, gave token of 
its long neglect. The ceiling appeared to be the only- 
part of the room which "decay's effacing fingers'*' had 
not yet reached. It was formed of very costly inlaid 
work, consisting of some dark coloured wood, probably 
ebony, on a white ground of box or beech, so extremely 
rich in appearance, that it looked more like the work of 
a fancy table in a lady's boudoir, than the ceiling of a 
castle chamber. 

In passing from one old room to another, we had to 
skirt along by a series of narrow galleries, some of them 
quite desolate and abandoned, while others had been con- 
verted to vulgar modern uses. On coming out of the 
grand banquetting room to pass into the hall or withdraw- 
ing room, we had to go along one of these galleries ; and 
in doing so, were obliged to thread our way through piles 
of Indian corn, stacks of fire-wood, and ranges of washing- 
tubs, and to duck our heads under cord^ covered with 
linen hung up to dry. Next minute we found ourselves 
in the midst of family pictures, huge coats of arms, carved 
in oak, guilded cornices, fresco painted walls and ceilings, 
and enormous folding doors covered with works in relief, 
and reaching, like the ornamental entrance to some Gothic 
churches, nearly to the top of the wall. Anon, on making 
our exit by one of these solemn portals, instead of finding 
ourselves in a grand court, or lobby, or splendid staircase, 
in character with the magnificent suit of apartments we 
had passed through, we had enough to do not to break 
our noses in scrambling down a steep awkward darkish 
sort of back stair, the poor remains of some vanished wing 
of the Castle. 

One of those precarious paths brought us, at the end of 
our transit, to the main road close to the iron-shod doors 
of the seventh gate, or highest line of defence, by which, 
in ancient and barbarous times, the upper part of the 
fortress had been defended from the lower. 



42 ~ THE IRON COFFIN. 

It seems that in those good old days the succession of 
this stronghold had been disputed by two brothers, who 
held the castle for some years jointly, and all the time in 
bitter hostility. The eldest had possessed himself of the 
top, three sides of which being a perpendicular rock, and 
the fourth in the hands of his amiable relative, he had no 
means of communication with the surrounding country. 
He was accordingly in a fair way of being starved out, 
when the bold idea occurred to him of cutting a"corniche 
road " round the face of the precipice, by which means 
he wound his way out and in, and obtained his supplies. 
The rival brothers being now on pretty equal terms, 
continued to blaze away at one another till both divisions 
of the castle were almost demolished. 

On returning through the lower range of Riegersburg, 
where a picturesque little village has been built under the 
shadow of the fort, we took a look, by the Countess's 
desire, at the church, v^ithin which she told us she had 
erected a chapel. As she had never changed from the 
Protestantism in which she was brought up at Edinburgh, 
and had acquired any thing but love or respect for the 
Catholicism of Austria, this proceeding appeared very 
odd. We examined the chapel, however, which was done 
up with the simple taste that characterized every thing 
she undertook. In the centre she had placed a neat, 
though rather showy altar ; and on one side a handsome 
granite monument to her husband and son. Over all 
blazed the glorious Saint Wenceslaus, the patron of the 
Purgstall family, not quite in keeping with the quiet 
elegance of the rest ; and the whole affair puzzled us not 
a little. 

These anomalies were explained by the Countess on 
our return to Hainfeld. She asked us little or nothing 
about the decaying grandeur of the ancient seat of her 
family in their prosperous days; and as it had passed from 
her hands to those of people who neglected it, and cared 
for none of its renowned associations, we refrained from 
alluding to it. But she was elocjuent on the subject of the 
chapel, where, in fact, owing to the peculiar cast of her 
temperament, nearly all her interests lay buried with her 



THE IRON COFFIN. 43 

husband and son: and we soon found that her sole wish 
on earth, or at least the wish which was always upper- 
most in her mind, was to be laid beside them. As diffi- 
culties might arise, however, on the score of her being a 
Pro£festant, or from the castle being no longer in the pos- 
session of her family, she thought it prudent to take every 
precaution beforehand to ensure this grand object of her 
anxiety. The priests accordingly were propitiated by 
this magnificent embellishment of the church; and the 
congregation felt themselves obliged to the Countess for 
placing before their wondering eyes a picture done in 
Vienna, and so much beyond their provincial conceptions 
of the power of art. It was generally understood also, 
that the Countess had left in her will certain sums of mo- 
ney to be distributed to the poor after her body should be 
quietly interred in the family vault of the Purgstalls; and 
the clergy of the spot had an idea, whether true or not, 
that in the same event, the poor in spirit were not forgot- 
ten in her ladyship's will. 

All these things she told us, not only with the utmost 
unconcern as to her death, but I may say with that sort of 
lively interest with which a person speaks of an agreeable 
visit to be made in the spring of the ensuing year. 

It was difficult at first to know exactly how to take all 
this — whether to be grave or gay — since it did not seem 
quite civil to be discussing as a pleasant affair, and in her 
presence, the details of our worthy hostess's funeral. So 
I thought it best merely to ask her whether, as in Eng- 
land, there might not be some difficulty as to interment in 
a vault within the church except in a leaden coffin. I 
suggested to her, that as in Austria people are buried very 
quickly after their death, there might be no time, espe- 
cially in a remote country place, to make the requisite 
preparations. 

"And do you think," retorted the old lady, with a cu- 
rious sort of smile, " do you think I was going to risk the 
success of the prime object of my thoughts upon such a 
contingency as that? No! no! you shall see," and ring- 
ing the bell, she summoned Joseph. 

"Get the keys," she exclaimed, "and show Captain 



44 THE NEIGHBOURS. 

Hall my coffin." And turning to us, she added, " when 
you see it, I think you will admit that it is not likely to 
be refused admittance to the church on the score of want 
of strength, or, for that matterj for want of beauty." 

I confess I was not a little curious to discover how either 
strength or beauty could be given to a leaden coffin; I 
found, however, it was not made of lead but of iron, and 
so tastefully contrived, that it looked more like one of 
those ornamental pieces of sculpture which surmount some 
of the old monuments in Westminster Abbey, than a coffin 
intended for real use. Having removed three huge fan- 
tastically-shaped padlocks, we folded back the lid, and I 
was surprised to see two large bundles, neatly sewed up 
in white linen, lying in the coffin, one at each end".. On 
stooping down and touching them, I discovered they were 
papers, and could read in the Countess's hand-writing, the 
following words — 

" Our Letters. — J. A. Purgstall." 



CHAPTER V. 

THE NEIGHBOURS. 

" Now," said the Countess, " that you have seen the 
ruined, desolate, and uninhabited castle of our extermi- 
nated family, I wish you would take a walk to another 
venerable chateau which is not, as yet, deserted, though I 
fear it is hastening to the same fate as poor Riegersburg. 
Besides," she added, " you ought to see something of your | 
neighbours, now that you are established in Styria." 

We were all compliance, and set off next day to visit 
Gleichenberg, which lies about a league and a half amongst 
the valleys south of Hainfeld, and, unlike that place, really 
looks its character of a castle, being built on the top of a 
Bteep rock, inaccessible on three isides. In other respects, 
too, it is beautifully situated, and in the season when we 



THE NEIGHBOURS. 45 

first visited it nothing could be more striking than the 
scene viewed from the windows of the inhabited part of 
the building. The lustre of the decaying foliage, like the 
colours of the dying dolphin, almost dazzled the sight; 
and the thick woods on every side crowded so close upon 
the castle, that until we came near it we could scarcely 
see even the turrets. In this respect Gleichenberg differs 
from its opposite neighbour Riegersburg, which is seen 
from every part of the surrounding country. Like that 
once famous stronghold, however, poor Gleichenberg 
is allowed to fall into a wretched state of neglect, and 
we could not help sighing to think that even a very 
little expense and a very little trouble might check 
the process of ruin, and render it one of the most 
charming places in the world. As it was, we had to 
make our way, as we best could, amongst piles of rubbish, 
and along roads, which, though formed in the solid rock, 
had been so worn out that they were barely passable, and 
over bridges scarcely strong enough to bear the weight of 
a cat. It is always painful to see the ancient residence of 
magnificence turned to base purposes. We can look with 
picturesque complacency on a good honest ruin, covered 
with ivy, and tenanted only by owls and foxes; but there 
is little or no pleasure in wandering through the deserted 
courts, damp staircases, and empty rooms of a huge palace, 
where half a dozen meager retainers occupy the establish- 
ment which might have lodged as many hundreds. 

With these feelings, and expecting nothing but the de- 
solation we had seen enough of at Riegersburg, we clam-, 
bered up to the second story, and there, most unexpectedly, 
came upon a very pleasantly lighted, well furnished, small 
suite of the snuggest possible apartments, occupied by the 
proprietor of the castle, the accomplished Countess of 
Trautmansdorff. 

Melancholy though it be to witness the dilapidation of 
an ancient dwelling, it is still more touching, I think, to 
observe the effect of that moral dilapidation which is con- 
sequent upon ruined fortunes, especially when the remain- 
ing fragments, so to speak, are of fine workmanship. I 
have seldom, in any country, seen a person of more ele- 

5 



46 ^HE NEIGHBOURS. 

gant manners than this poor lacly, once amongst the most 
distinguished stars of the fashionable constellations of 
Vienna, and still a beautiful woman. Though so much 
reduced in circumstances as to be obliged to live in the 
mere corner of her own castle, and surrounded by ruin 
and destruction of every kind, her rooms were neatly, 
and in many respects, richly fitted up. 

In spite of all her difficulties, too, ^he has maintained, 
though in a less splendid style than formerly, her proper 
position in society. The severest of her trials, I can well 
believe, was the almost entirely ruined health of her only 
daughter. It is said that when fifteen months old the 
child slipped through the hands of its nurse, who was 
dancing it on a table, and that the fall produced a concus- 
sion of the brain, or fracture of the skull, I know not 
which; in short, an injury, the consequence of which was 
that the poor little thing could neither speak nor walk for 
eight years. Since then she had grown up to be a tall 
fine looking girl; and, what is a thousand times more in- 
teresting, it seems her intellects, which had been only 
weakened and arrested, as it were, in their course, not 
destroyed, have been gradually improving, so that there 
is a prospect of her being entirelv restored. What a trul}'' 
heavenly reward must it not be to the mother for all her 
patience in sorrow, to regain the mental companionship of 
a daughter, who, unreflecting people might at one time 
have said, would have been better dead than alive! 

On our return the Countess was so pleased with our 
account of Gleichenberg and its inmates, rhat she ^started 
us off the next day to visit another of her neighbours liv- 
ing in a chateau called Steinberg, one of the multitudinous 
castles with which that part of the country is studded, 
almost all of which, with the single exception of our 
home, dear old Hainfeld, look the character admirably. 
It is only, however, without that these buildings make 
any show; and in our round of visits to the neighbouring 
houses, we found that it was merely a succession of ruins 
we were called upon to admire openly, and to sigh over 
in secret. 

The proprietor of Steinberg had lived so fast that his 
means became exhausted, and he was obliged to sell the 



THE NEIGHBOURS. 47 

castle and estate, after stripping both as completely as 
possible. The new purchaser, though neither a gambler 
nor a spendthrift, nor a free liver, nor in any way extra- 
vagant, happened not to be one of the wisest of men, though 
one of the most good-natured, and thus, somehow, it hap- 
pened that the rents were always spent faster than they 
came in ; and, in process of time, the castle and lands once 
more changed ownership. On this occasion rather an odd 
arrangement was made, which I am surprised is not 
oftener adopted in like circumstances. Instead of the 
estate being put up for public sale, it was quietly arranged 
that the next heirs, two nephews, should come at once 
into possession, while the uncle and his family were to 
occupy, for life, a small suite of apartments, and to draw 
their daily bread, and daily beef and potatoes, from the 
adjacent home farm. 

At all events, there we found him, after a strange navi- 
gation through broken down corridors and crazy stairs 
which conducted us to a passage, high up, from which we 
again made a steep descent as if we had been going into a 
cellar. The rooms, however, were light, airy, and most 
cheerful, with windows looking over the prettiest part of 
the country. The good lady of the house, and her whole 
establishment, were somewhat different from what we had 
seen the day before, but, in their way, not less pleasing. 
Her genuine and hearty hospitality was indicated by the 
restless bustle she kept up during all the time of our visit, 
toiling and panting between the kitchen and the drawing- 
room, bringing in dishes of grapes, trays of glasses filled 
with syllabub, cakes, and all sorts of good things, till the 
children were half sick with stuffing, and the rest of the 
company ashamed or unable to eat more. The rattling 
of a tea equipage at last gave us notice that if we did not 
wish utterly to destroy all appetite for dinner we ought 
to beat our retreat. 

Amongst the numerous curiosities of the castle of Stein- 
berg I shall mention only one. It was a very thin but 
strong iron mask, with clasps and locks of the same metal, 
of which a redoubted Baron of olden times is said to have 
made frequent use. It appears that he had a very hand- 



48 THE NEIGHBOURS." 

some wife, who was sadly coquettish, and more fond of 
exhibiting her pretty face than he at all approved of. 
Whenever he stirred from home, therefore, he was wont 
to encase his slippery partner's head in this iron mask, 
and put the key in his pocket. , Tradition says that the 
gentleman mistook the application, and quite misplaced 
the protection, as the lady, though she could not exhibit 
the light of her countenance to her lovers, whispered still 
softer endearments through the bars,* and in the end taught 
the foolish noble that in love as in war, physical obstacles, 
so far from keeping out an invading enemy, generally 
serve as his best stepping stones to conquest. 

We should have been glad to be left quiet a little after 
these two excursions ; but the Countess, who, in a kind 
and friendly way, was rather arbitrary, reminded us that 
we were close to the frontier of Hungary, on .the other 
side of which some very particular friends of hers resided. 
She therefore begged us to drive so far, see a little of that 
celebrated ceuntry, take our dinner with her friends, and 
return at night. She also gave us instructions how best 
to see a celebrated field of battle near St. Gothard, between 
the Turks and Austrians, in the year 1665, " which,'^ 
continued she, " you have doubtless heard of?'' 

We certainly had never heard a word of the matter, 
but away we went, in compliance with her ladyship's 
wishes, crossed the Hungarian frontier, and having climb- 
ed the steeple of the village of St. Gothard, which lies at 
the confluence of the Raab and the Feistritz, were instruct- 
ed by our guide in the details of the great fight alluded 
to, I confess I took more interest in the wild, indeed 
half savage costume and looks of the Hungarians, most of 
whom were dressed in long, flowing, white cloaks. The 
language, manners, and appearance in every respect of 
these people differed essentially from those of the Sty- 
rians whom we had left but a few miles behind. This 
seems the more strange, as the boundary between the two 
countries is nothing but an imaginary line, or at most a 
hedge and a ditch, which the Countess's coachman had 
some difficulty, I thought, in pointing out, though he had 
lived thereabouts all his life. 1 cannot better describe St. 



THE NEIGHBOURS. 49 

Gothard to those who have been in the East than by Com- 
paring it to an Indian town on a market day ; and those 
who have not been in the East may derive some notion 
of it from DanielPs exquisite drawings, or those of less 
remote scenes from the graphic pencil of Horace Vernet, 
whose pictures of African manners are so admirably true 
to nature. 

What we heard of Hungary did not very much tempt 
us to go far into that still half-savage region. The pea- 
santry are kept in a deplorable state of subjection by their 
lords, who, if not vested with the power of life and death, 
in all cases where their will and pleasure is contradicted, 
possess the power of punishing corporally and summarily 
whoever may chance to offend them. We were shown a 
letter one day from a lady who had gone as governess to 
that part of Hungary which lies nearest to Poland, and 
w^here, from political and other circumstances, the coun- 
try is in an extraordinary state of excitement. There it 
would seem the peasantry have a particular dislike to their 
seigneurs, and in consequence of some of their insurrec- 
tionary proceedings, no fewer than seventeen of them 
were hanged on the trees close to the house in which the 
lady was residing ! So that she and her pupils could not 
go out to walk, without passing the spot where these 
seventeen victims were exposed 'in terror em to the re- 
maining tenantry. Nor dared she or her young ladies 
stir from the house without three armed servants as an 
escort. 

After learning this and many similar enormities, it was 
pleasant to hear our Hungarian friends assert, that although 
they form politically a part of the Austrian dominions, 
they are in fact an independent and free nation ; and what 
was still more amusing, to hear them maintain roundly, 
that they possessed a constitution very much resembling 
that of England. Upon coming to close quarters in con- 
versation with some of these Hungarians, we learned that 
the chief, and, in fact, as far as we could discover, the 
sole, point of resemblance between the constitutions of 
Hungary and England consisted in their both having two 
legislative chambers. But there occurs this trifling dis- 

5* 



50 TSE NEIGHBOURS. 

tinction, — in Hungary, both chambers consist of heredi- 
tary nobility, neither being elective by the people. More- 
over, the country, though not thickly inhabited, contains 
upwards of three hundred thousand nobles — that is, per- 
sons of noble family, all of whom are exempted from 
taxes, and are vested with many other arbitrary and gall- 
ing privileges. However low in life these persons of 
noble blood may be — butchers, bakers, shoemakers — 
they retain their nobility, and exercise their privileges. 
This is only a small item in the catalogue of differences 
between us ; but we soon found it hopeless to talk to the 
Hungarians on the subject, and it is perhaps well for them 
if they are pleased with what they cannot hope to alter. 

In the midst of these national discussions the dinner 
appeared ; and as our morning's expedition had made us 
more than usually hungry, we looked forward with les& 
dread than we had ever done before to the overloaded 
table which all reports of the nature and extent of a Ger- 
man dinner led us to expect. But our fears on this score, 
if we had any, were groundless, for a less loaded repast 
never was seen. There was positively too little for the 
company, and- we felt awkward at having, by our intru- 
sion, diminishedthe scanty allowance of the family. Every 
dish was carried off the -table as clean as if, instead of a 
goodly company of Hungarian ladies and gentlemen, 
with a couple of hungry heretics from England, the baron 
had introduced a dozen of his wild boar hounds to lick 
the platters. 

As this was the only Hungarian dinner we saw during 
our stay in these parts, a notice of it may perhaps interest 
the lovers of good cheer. We had first of ail coldish^ 
dirty-looking, thin soup ; then a plate wit^ ill-cut slices^ 
of ill-salted tongue ; and after a long and dreary interval^ 
a dish consisting of slices of boiled beef, very cold, very 
fat, and very tough. I know not whence the fat came f 
for in that country there are no cattle bred for the table, 
but only for the plough and the wagon, and after many 
years of labour they are killed, not because they are fit to 
be eaten (quite the contrary,) but because they can work 
no longer. The next dish promised better, it was a sal- 



THE KEIGHBOURS. 51 

mon, twisted into a circle, with his tail in his mouth, like 
the allegorical images of eternity. But I am sure if I 
were to live, as the Americans say, from July to Eternity, 
I should not wish to look upon the like of such a fish 
again. It had been brought all the way from Carinthia 
by the bold baron himself I need not say more. And 
yet its bones were so nicely cleaned, that the skeleton 
might have been placed in a museum of natural history, 
and named by ,Agassiz or Deshayes, without further 
trouble. Next arrived a dish of sausages, which disap- 
peared in what the Germans call an Augenblick, or twink- 
ling of an eye. Lastly came the roast, as it always does 
in those countries, biit instead of a jolly English sirloin or 
haunch, the dish consisted of a small shred of what they 
facetiously called venison — but such venison ! Yet had 
the original stag been alive from which this morsel was 
hewn, it could not have moved off faster. To wind up 
all, instead of dessert, we were presented with a soup 
plate holding eleven small dry sweet-cakes, each as big 
as a Genevese watch-glass. In short, not to spin out this 
sad repast, it reminded me of long bygone days spent in 
the midshipmen's birth on short allowance, where the 
daily bread and beef of his gracious Majesty used to vanish 
in like manner, and leave, as Shakspeare says, "not a 
wreck behind !" I ought not to omit that the wine was 
scarcely drinkable, excepting, I presume, one bottle of 
Burgundy, which the generous master of the house kept 
faithfully to himself, not offering even the lady by his 
side, a stranger and his own invited guest, a single glass,, 
but drinking the whole, to the last drop, himself! So- 
much for a Hungarian magnate ! 



52 THE RIVAL GUESTS. 

CHAPTER VI. 

THE RIVAL GUESTS. 

Our friendly hostess furnished us with many other op- 
portunities of seeing the society of her neighbourhood ; 
for although, as I hav6 mentioned, she had been for several 
years bedridden, she nevertheless greatly enjoyed good 
company, and possessed in herself the means of entertain- 
ing her guests in a manner equalled by very few even of 
those who are not pinned like her, poor woman, to one spot. 

It required, indeed, as will be seen by and by, a good 
deal more trouble to free the house from disagreeable 
guests, than to procure the company of persons who con- 
tributed to the cheerfulness of the party ; for the style of 
living in Styria differed widely from that of England, or any 
where else, that we had seen. It reminded us constantly 
of what we had read in old books, or heard in the stories 
of old people. Our castle, in fact, was a sort of liberty-hall, 
to which people came uninvited, at all hours and seasons \ 
sometimes they came to dinner ; sometimes to supper ; and 
generally they staid the night, but vanished next day ; — 
or they remained a week, just as suited themselves, kissing 
their hostess's hand- when they came and when they went, 
welcome either way. 

The master of the house having been long dead and 
gone, and the mistress confined to one corner, the chateau, 
it may be thought, would wear a desolate appearance, and 
be so in fact. Instead of that, the ancient hospitality was 
kept up undiminished, under the immediate guidance of 
the butler Joseph, who, after having fought with Napoleon 
in most of his campaigns, had, by the change of times, 
been led to employ his green old age in the service of the 
Countess. Manfully, indeed, had he stood by her in the 
midst of her misfortunes. At one time her distress became 
so great, that what with debts, real and fictitious, the ex- 
penses of lawsuits, and the severe exactions of the govern- 
ment to pay off the costs of the dreadful wars in which 



THE RIVAL GUESTS. 53 

Austria had been wprsted, she was reduced to a state of 
poverty. This was the more severe upon her, as, up to 
the time of her son's death, she had been the virtual head 
of an immense property, and lived in great splendour. At 
that critical period, when her ruin seemed inevitable, and 
the poor Countess was almost entirely deserted, she asked 
Joseph to stay by her. "Madam,'' said the old soldier, 
"if vre shall be reduced to live on potatoes, I shall never 
desert you." This the Countess told me herself, adding, 
that during two-and-twenty years, many of which were 
years of poverty, and all of them of sickness and sorrow, 
he had not only never expressed a wish to leave her, but 
had preserved his cheerfulness throughout every disaster, 
and by always taking the bright side of things (which un- 
fortunately for herself was not the poor Countess's own 
habit), he had essentially contributed to render her life not 
absolutely intolerable. 

This old soldier, as I have already said, made a capital 
Major-Domo ; and being a man of the world, he helped the 
company at dinner not merely to topics, but to his opinions 
thereon, which had a very droll effect at first, and often 
made strangers stare. As he had learned from his cam- 
paignings what the want of comforts was, he became the 
better able to supply such visitors as ourselves, for instance, 
with the means of living comfortably. As he was, more- 
over, a man of abilities and resource, who stuck at nothing, 
and made no difficulties, we got on famously together. In 
short, our friend Joseph was truly a second Caleb Balder- 
stone, who, at all hazards, made the most of the family 
means — smiled under every reverse of fortune, and essen- 
tially contributed to the maintenance «f the prosperity of 
the household to which he was attached, by courageously 
resolving that nothing should or could go wrong at Hain- 
feld, as long as his misstress lived. 

The Countess, in my presence, gave him formally to 
understand that I was to be looked upon, for the time, as 
master of the castle, and my directions were to be obeyed 
with the same exactness as her own orders ; and these in- 
junctions she desired him to communicate to the whole 
establishment. 



54 THE RIVAL GUESTS. 

4 

"I have already," she continued, J)ut addressing me, 
" given similar instructions to the cook; and therefore, if 
there be any thing within the scope of Hainfeld to produce, 
for which you or your family do not ask when you require 
it, the fault is with yourselves, and I shall be very much 
mortified." 

The Countess's whole mind, indeed, seemed to be em- 
ployed at that time in discovering what it was we liked 
best ; what was most agreeable and useful for the children ; , 
and what, in short, in her household arrangements, in the 
society she brought to the castle, and in her own deport- 
ment to us, would be most agreeable, and most likely to 
keep out of our heads all thoughts of going away — any allu- 
sion to which threw the old lady into such agitation, that 
as much as possible we forbore speaking of our future plans, 
and merely determined to take our own measures quietly, 
but to be resolute in going at the period we considered 
right. It w^ill be seen presently how skilfully our hostess 
managed to baffle and upset all our schemes. 

In the mean time, we very soon found ourselves so much 
at home, that we set the children to their regular lessons, 
and fell ijito habits of business, such as they were, our- 
selves. The even tenor of our lives, while it furnished 
few or no striking incidents, allowed us ample leisure for 
looking about us, and forming opinions as to the state of 
the country, chiefly from the conversation of the m^ny in- 
telligent persons who visited the Castle. 

It was some time, however, before the crowd of novel 
objects ceased to present a confused mass, or we could 
speculate with any feeling of confidence either on the do- 
mestic manners or o% the political condition of a people 
circumstanced so diflferently from any which our previous 
travels had given us an opportunity of observing. Neither 
did we care much, for we intended soon to recommence 
our journey, and a subject so vast, we felt, was not to be 
grasped in a few weeks. So we fairly resigned ourselves 
into the hands of our obliging hostess, who, when she suc- 
ceeded, in making us promise not to think of leaving her 
for some time, undertook to provide us, both indoors and 



THE RIVAL GUESTS. 55 

abroad, with objects of interest. How well she kept her 
word, I shall endeavour to show. 

When we first arrived at liainfeld, we found living in 
the house two young ladies from the neighbouring provin- 
cial capital of Styria, called Gratz, a very pretty place, and 
in wealth and fashion just such a rival to Vienna as Bath is 
to London ; and the manners of the gay world there, it 
may be presumed, partake of the same distinctions from 
those of the metropolis. As we were pi'evented by cir- 
cumstances from visiting Vienna, we had only a few, and 
those indirect, means of judging of this important matter. 
We met, for example, with a good many persons during 
our stay at Hainfeld, who, though no longer resident in 
Vienna, had been bred there, and these we could compare 
with our Gratz acquaintances. 

Both the young ladies I have mentioned were lively 
and pleasing persons ; they spoke French readily, but not 
very well ; and they both spoke English a little, and so 
as to be easily understood ; for it is much' the fashion in 
Germany, as we found afterwards during our extensive 
tour in that country, to study English. As they professed 
a great desire to improve themselves in speaking, it would 
have been a very obvious course to have profited by such 
an opportunity, especially as we were all not only willing, 
but anxious to afford them the means of correcting what 
was erroneous in their pronunciation or construction. 
Nevertheless, they insisted upon speaking their own 
lumbering French, in place of English ; and they actually 
prevented us from being of any use to them, by invariably 
turning into a jest any thing in commendation, and show- 
ing evident displeasure when correctSd in a fault. This 
was teazing enough, since we ourselves w^ere beginning 
the study of German, and we hoped to have made a reci- 
procal treaty, and bartered English in exchange for 
German idiom. But, most perversely, they would no 
more speaJi their own language than ours ; and thus we 
went on, in the matter of languages, like the French and 
English nations in the matter of commerce — each possess- 
ing the articles the other requires, but never agreeing to 
exchange them. This smacked of prowncial taste, which 



56 THE RIVAL GUESTS. 

became still more manifest as our acquaintance advanced. 
In spite of all we could say or do, our pretty friends were 
never at their ease, and were always striving at some 
effect, instead of trusting to their own natural parts and 
a<icomplishments, which were considerable, and which 
we were willing to make the most of, for we liked them 
much. 

In process of time, it came out that one of these damsels 
was a poetess, and what I confess I learned with equal 
surprise and alarm — an English poetess ! That any one, 
so slightly acquainted even with the elementary parts of 
a language, should venture to deal with the highest, was 
matter of wonder. I naturally felt no small dread lest I 
should be called upon to pronounce an opinion upon verses 
constructed under such circumstances, and which by no 
possibility could escape being execrable. I very soon 
saw indeed that the young lady felt a strong desire to 
obtain mj^ favourable judgment on her productions ; but 
instead of showing them to me frankly herself, she gave 
them to the Countess, with a special injunction that I was 
not to see them. Of course, the old lady took this as it 
seemed to her to be intended, laughed at the limitation, 
as I should no doubt myself have done, had not my 
curiosity to read the stanzas been altogether subordinate 
to the horror of having to praise them. Next day the 
ladies highly commended my probity, as they rather ^\y\j, 
and with an air of suppressed mortification, called my 
small piece of Jesuitism ; and then commenced a series of 
scenes of coquetry and mock humility, which must have 
felt very wearisome in a country house in winter, had I 
not been sustained by the hope of escaping a sight of the 
poetry. 

The Countess, who, though chained to her bed, seemed 
to know, by a sort of intuition, every thing that was going 
on in the castle, soon remarked to us that she suspected 
the Gratz ladies were not doing the honours of their 
country in the style she had hoped when she invited them. 
*' Therefore," said she, " I have sent across the hills to 
some other friends whom I think you will like better, 



THE RIVAL GUESTS. 57 

and who I am sure will more justly appreciate the society 
which accident has enabled me to put in their way/' 

The commencement of a Northwester on the coast of 
Labrador could not look more threatening than the coun- 
tenance of our Gratz young ladies, when the news of the 
promised accession to our party was spread abroad. In 
the incautious haste of jealousy, they insinuated that some 
of us had instigated the Countess to call in these hostile 
troops in the shape of auxiliaries. But the poOr girls 
" took nothing by this motion," as the lawyers say ; for 
while we disclaimed all participation in the conspiracy, 
we acknowledged our satisfaction at its success. 

In due season the new party arrived, a mother and two 
daughters. Had we left the country the day before, I 
might, according to the received method of recording 
national characteristics, have written down in my diary, 
"all the young ladies in Lower Styria write English 
verses, and are vain and coquetish." And, on the other 
hand, had I seen only these new comers, I might, on the 
same judicious plan of generalizing, have noted, " that all 
the ladies of that country are well-bred, unaffected, pretty, 
and well informed." For I really do not know when, 
nor in what land, I have met with more artless or pleasing 
specimens of what young women ought to be, than these 
uncommonly agreeable persons. The eldest might be 
about two or three-and-twenty ; and though not so very 
pretty as her sister, whose age was about seventeen, she 
possessed in a higher degree that beauty of expression 
which, while it is beyond the reach of mere features to 
produce, gives a decisive character and purpose to every 
line of the countenance, making the eyes speak, and the 
lips hold intelligible language, even when no words pass 
them. If to these charms are added the recommendations 
of good sense, good taste, and good manners, all based on 
right principles and generous feelings, and rendered effec- 
tive by an acquaintance with the world, by native vivacity, 
and a total absence of selfishness, a character is formed 
which need dread no rivalry that the most polished society 
on earth could boast of. 

What added to our interest in this very charming person 

6 



58 THE RIVAL GUESTS. 

was her speaking English, so nearly in perfection, that 
the slight foreign accent, and even the mistakes she some- 
times made, served only to engage the attention more 
closely, and very often gave additional strength to her 
meaning, which was always judicious, by a slight but not 
inappropriate exaggeration in the expression. We could 
perceive, too, when she spoke her native German, which 
was the most pleasing thing possible to the ear, that her 
accent was decidedly different from the startling harshness 
of the Styrian variety of that extraordinary language to 
which we had been accustomed for some weeks. What 
the Vienna noblemen and other "eligibles'' of the capital 
can have been about, I know not, but sure 1 am, that if I 
had been a young unmarried man, whether "eligible^' or 
otherwise, I should presently have fallen over head and 
ears in love with this pretty German. 

Both our new friends not onl)" expressed themselves 
anxious to learn, but seriously exerted themselves to im- 
prove in speaking English, while they mightily flattered 
lis, by taking an eager interest in hearing about the coun- 
tries far and near which we had gone over. As they had 
been brought up in the capital, they had had the benefit 
of the best masters, and accordingly were as accomplished 
as mere teaching could make them. All the masters on 
earth, however, could have gone but a little way essen- 
tially, to produce such results. Indeed, I doubt much if 
they could have gone one step in any case in framing 
manners of so much simplicity and elegance. On the 
contrary, it is to be apprehended, that as in Austria 
generally, the substratum of principle and sentiment is 
not good, the forced culture of talents may often lead to 
rankness, but seldom to richness of the moral crop. At 
any rate, however it may have been brought about, and 
whether most be due to nature, or most to art, it is par- 
ticularly pleasing, as in the instance I am describing, to 
meet in remote places, and where we least expect it, a 
style of manners and a purity of thought, which our 
prejudices are too apt to insinuate can belong only to the 
most favoured parts of the most favoured lands. 

On the other hand, it makes one quite melancholy to 



THE RIVAL GUESTS. 59 

think how such rare merits are almost inevitably 'destined 
to be utterly wasted, in a country where such a thing as a 
marriage of choice is so very rare, that when it does 
happen, it certainly forms the exception to the rule, not, 
alas ! the example. I was, indeed, much disappointed 
and grieved to find, that in Austria the whole of the 
domestic relations were in about as bad a predicament as 
in Italy. Flow, indeed, can it possibly be otherwise, 
when marriages are arranged by the parents, aud not by 
the parties themselves who are to pass their lives — I will 
not say together — but as husband and wife? Mutual 
attachment, as I am given to understand, being seldom if 
ever the motive to such connexions in that country, the 
consequences are just what might be expected from trust- 
ing such delicate matters to the hands of any, even the 
most affectionate, and it might be supposed, the most 
disinterested of agents. To do any sort of business by 
proxy is proverbially the way to do it ill; — but when old 
heads come to settle the arrangements between young 
hearts, the evil is one which even the labours of a whole 
life are unable to remedy. When two young people are 
brought together by any motive but that of mutual 
affection, and tied to one another by a ceremony which 
owes its chief sanction to the opinion of society — be its 
professed sanctions what they may, — and when, from the 
nature of their education, they are not restrained by any 
scruples on the score of principle, and are still less invited 
by usage to be virtuous, — and when, of course, their very 
warmest and best feelings are wasted for want of generous 
employment, they are extremely apt to mistake the 
indulgence of their passions for a duty,- as soon as fitting 
objects of their regard come in their way. It is then, 
alas ! that the formal chain by which their cold domestic 
relations have been held together, is snapped in two at 
the first touch of genuine sympathy, and the solemn 
marriage vow takes the degraded rank of a dicer's oath. 

The decencies of civilized society — the good taste of 
the most influential persons in every class — the obvious 
interest of the parties respectively — and the habitual long 
6stabli9hed customs of what is termed good company, 



60 THE RIVAL GUESTS. 

generally modify the external behaviour of married per- 
sons, even in Italy and Austria, into something in which 
there is not much to strike the transient glance of a 
stranger. But the smallest careful inquiry draws back 
the flimsy veil. The causes which lead to this sad state 
of things are very curious and instructive ; and as they 
do not lie very deep, and are easily explained, they may 
perhaps be adverted to farther on. The Countess was 
very eloquent on this point, and related many anecdotes 
illustrative of the state of manners in Austria and Italy, 
which she used to assert were pretty much alike in this 
respect. 

The following very ridiculous story she assured us she 
had from a gentleman on whose veracity she could rely. 
The scene of it was in Italy. 

" A young lady, about eighteen or twenty, was with- 
drawn from the convent in which she had passed her life 
since the time she was an infant. On being brought home 
she soon learned from her attendant, or in some other 
round-about way, that she was ere long to be married; as 
her parents, however, said nothing to her on the subject, 
she could not even guess who the person was with whom 
she was to be connected; and the only official notice she 
had of the fact arose from her being carried to the milli- 
ner's and jeweller's to fit on the dresses and trinkets suit- 
able for the occasion. Her curiosity was now raised to 
the highest pitch; but as she had never seen her mother 
except for a short visit once or twice a year, and of course 
had no intimacy with her, she could not at first bring her- 
self to ask any direct question on the subject. One day 
two young men dined at their house, and as this was 
rather an unusual circumstance, she thought it probable 
that one of them — for they were both in the enviable class 
of " eligibles," — must be her intended husband. They 
both paid her equal attention, but with very different suc- 
cess. To one she felt an invincible repugnance, to the 
other she was well disposed to yield her affections; and 
such had now become her anxiety to learn her fate, that, 
finding her mother in a most unusually good humour with 
her, in the course of the evening she ventured respectfully 



THE RIVAL GUESTS. 61 

to say, " Mamma, if it be not too great a liberty, may I 
beg of you to tell me the name of the gentleman I am to 
be married to next week?'' — " Liberty !" exclaimed the 
astonished parent, " liberty you may well call it! How 
dare you ask such a question? And,'' added she, with a 
significant shake of her head, " let me warn you, my 
daughter, not to run the risk of incurring your father's 
displeasure by showing him any of this premature and 
undutiful curiosity. For, if you do, I should not wonder 
if he were to pack you back to your convent, not for a 
season, but for life." Accordingly, she held her peace, 
and in ten days afterwards was married to one of the two 
men who had dined at the house, but, unfortunately, he 
was the wrong one!'' 

But I am forgetting the rival guests, our Gratz and 
Vienna young ladies, who, although apparently the best 
friends imaginable, were too little alike to be very cor- 
dial, and we had no small difficulty in shaping our course 
between them so as to avoid giving offence to either 
group, and yet to profit by the merits of both, for we felt 
well disposed to all the parties. Indeed, had our Gratz 
friends been content to let pretty well alone, we should 
have remained the best friends possible to the end of the 
chapter. Few people, however, who have not fortitude 
and self-control enough to repress the feeling of mortifica- 
tion which springs out of unsuccessful rivalry, have either 
pride or discretion enough to restrain its expression, even 
when the mischief is thereby likely to be aggravated. 
And in the course of the very first evening after the 
strangers had arrived, one of our old friends said to me, 
in a reproachful tone, that she suspected me of a great 
"infidelite" to her. I really did not understand what 
she meant, and said so. 

"I grievously-suspect," continued the pretty provin- 
cial, " that you prefer these new comers, to your old 
friends?" 

I ought, in all courtesy, to have disclaimed any such 
dereliction, and to have protested that such an idea was 
vain and ridiculous, as President Jackson slyly says, in 
his message to Congress, when accused of bullying the 

6* 



62 THE RIVAL GUESTS. 

French; but I was taken by surprise, and said nothing — 
while the poor girl, colouring with very natural anger, 
turned away to sip her cup of tea with what appetite she 
might. 

A few days afterwards, just as we sat down to dinner, 
a carriage drove under the archway, and one of the young 
ladies being called out, returned in a few minutes, tn^eath- 
less, and with a letter in her hand, exclaiming, 

" My mother has sent for us — we must go directly.^^ 

And they left the table long before dinner was over, 
ostensibly to pack up their things, but in reality to slip off 
without taking leave of any one; and we never saw them 
more. 

The provocation we felt — if, indeed, we felt any — at 
this Gratz edition of what is called " taking French 
leave," was very short-lived. Had it been much greater, 
indeed, what followed — alas I too soon — would have obli- 
terated every trace but that of the most kindly feelings 
towards our earliest Styrian friends. 

A ball was given at Gratz, not long after the above 
scenes, at which our two friends attended. The night 
was bitter cold — but as the ground was dry, and the dis- 
tance but ten steps across the street, the ladies, hot frOm 
the dance, ran over to their home. They had brought, 
however, a wrong key with them, and no tugging of the 
bell could awaken the drowsy servants. Instead of going 
back instantly, as they ought to have done, they remained 
for twenty minutes before they gained admittance, all the 
time exposed to the biting of a harsh north-east wind. In 
this brief interval the nipping frost had struck its icy and 
deadly fangs into the pretty bud which was just beginning 
to open. The youngest of our lively friends — the poor 
poetess withal — was taken so ill, almost immediately, that 
she was carried off by a rapid decline in the course of a 
few weeks! 



THE ARCHDUKE JOHN OF AUSTRIA. 63 

CHAPTER VII. 

THE ARCHDUKE JOHN OP AUSTRIA. 

Ever since our arrival at Hainfeldj there had been 
much talk of our visiting the Archduke John, the Empe- 
ror of Austria's brother. At that season he resided at his 
vineyard, near Marburg, close to the foot of the Bacher 
Gebirge, which is one of the eastern prolongations of the 
Julian Alps, lying on the right bank of the great river 
Drave. As our friend the Countess had for the last thirty 
years been on very friendly terms with his Imperial 
Highness, she readily managed to arrange our visit, and 
in her great anxiety that we should receive fayourable 
impressions of Styria, its people, and its scenery, she daily 
urged us to make out this expedition before the winter 
set in. A messenger was accordingly sent off with a let- 
ter, expressing our wish to pay our respects to him at his 
villa; and the answer being most obliging, we left our 
snug quarters at Hainfeld on the 161h of October, at four 
o'clock in the morning. As there was nothing in the 
Archduke's note which related to dinner, we were left 
in some doubt as to the hour. He had simply stated that 
he hoped to see us shortly after noon, and we naturally 
supposed we were expected to take our dinner, or " mit- 
tagsbrod, as the Germans call it, with his Highness. Some 
authorities said he would of course dine at twelve, the 
common hour in the country— others said, surely he will 
dine at his usual Vienna hour of two; and in the end, we 
resolved, very indiscreetly, and like young travellers, to 
aim at reaching the vineyard at the latest of the two pe- 
riods, and to take our chance. 

We stopped at a place called Knass, to breakfast, and to 
pick up a pair of fresh horses, which the ever-considerate 
Countess had sent on for us. As we carried with us bread, 
milk, eggs, and tea, and as the coachman who went for- 
ward with the relay had taken care, at my suggestion, to 
provide boiling water, which is the most difficult thing 



64 THE ARCHDUKE JOHN OF AUSTRIA. 

possible to be procured in those, countries, we made a 
capital Friihstiick, as they call it in Germany; "Friih" 
being early, and " Stiick," a piece, or bit. 

Thus refreshed, we again started in a cloud of dust, 
which, however, had it been twLce as dense, could not 
have hid the surpassing beauties of the valley through 
which we wound our way. Even thirteen months of 
drought, unrelieved except by a few transient thunder 
showers, had not been able to tarnish, or to do more than 
slightly tarnish, the lustre of scenery which, in its prime 
vigour of foliage, must be very striking. But the rapid 
advance of autumn had wrought a material change in the 
aspect of things since we passed through the skirts of the 
same forest a fortnight before. Then, a slight but decided 
tinge of yellow had been cast rather carelessly over the 
woods, and here and there we could spy a tree, the leaves 
of which had been turned to blood-red, but still the greens 
in their manifold variety predominated over all. Now, 
the yellows and the reds had it hollow, and many single 
trees, as well as an occasional grove on some exposed 
knoll, had been stripped of every leaf. In general, how- 
ever, the drapery of the forest remained entire, and shone 
with a brilliancy which reminded us of the magnificent 
autumn in the eastern States of North America. 

We reached the town of Marburg at noon; but as it had 
been filled with strangers, collected from the neighbour- 
hood on account of the vintage, which was in full pro- 
gress, though a full month earlier than usual, we had 
great difficulty in getting any one to attend us. We were 
happy at last in being received at the Sun, though it was 
the fourth in rank of the inns of the place. Still more 
difficulty had we in. getting fresh horses, so that it was 
about one before we were fairly under weigh and on the 
road to the Archduke's villa. The acclivity at last became 
so steep, that the postillion declared the horses could no 
longer drag the carriage, and he pointed out a short cut 
through the vines, which he said would lead us to the 
house. -^ 

After toiling and panting up what seemed more like a 
flight of steep steps than a walk, we were received at the 



THE ARCHDUKE JOHN OP AUSTRIA. 65 

top by the Archduke John himself, who, without his hat, 
had run out to meet and welcome us. There was so much 
natural courtesy in his manner, that we felt quite at home 
with him in a moment. 

His Imperial Highness is a very pleasing person, about 
fifty-five years of age, with a fine, high, bald forehead, and 
an expression of quietness and repose, bordering on me- 
lancholy, in his countenance, which is singularly engaging. 
His conversation and manners, too, are so untouched by 
the slightest shade of affectation, and withal so cordial, that 
every one must feel at ease in his presence. 

We soon began to discover that we had unfortunately 
made a great mistake in our calculations as to dinner, for 
the Archduke, it appeared, had dined at noon, as he al- 
ways does when living at his vineyard. But on going 
into the drawing-room of the cottage, — for it was no more 
than a country box, — we were not a little surprised to 
find a long table laid out with a cold collation, and at least 
a dozen covers. There was cold venison in slices, cold 
turkey, cold ham, and cakes of all shapes, with fruit and 
wine in abundance. We naturally connected this prepa- 
ration with our own arrival, and when the Archduke 
asked us if we were disposed to eat any thing, we said we 
certainly were fully prepared, as we had taken nothing 
since breakfast, forty miles off, and eight hours before. 

But cold meat and dry bread or sweet biscuits form a 
sorry dinner, after such a drive as we had made amongst 
the mountains of Styria; and long before our appetitCwS 
were half satisfied our jaws ached, and our throats became 
as parched as the roads we had been travelling over. We 
felt amazingly disposed to say to his Imperial Highness, 
" Don't you think you could manage to get us a basin of 
soup?" But those horrid etiquettes which hold all man- 
kind in terror, restrained! us, and we continued packing 
in the slices of ham and turkey as one crams things into a 
trunk that is already too full. 

The nature and extent of this collation puzzled us ex- 
ceedingly, as they were totally out of keeping with every 
thing else in the establishment, which was quite simple 
and cottage-like. Nor was it till towards the end of our 



66 THE ARCHDUKE JOHN OF AUSTRIA. 

visit, that, in the course of a walk we took over the vine- 
yard and through the wine-pressing establishment, we 
discovered the cause. On turning an angle of the road, 
we came to about a dozen carriages, and fell in with many 
groups of visitors, this being the Archduke's weekly re- 
ception day ; and we now came to understand that the 
collation into which we had made such deep inroads had 
been prepared, not for us, but for the country neighbours 
who came to pay their respects to his Imperial Highness. 
He, however, said nothing to us in the way of explana- 
tion or apology — in fact, he had not asked us to dinner, 
but finding us hungry, had given us all he could, and of 
that we made the most. 

He gave us, however, what was of more substantial 
importance, namely, a set of directions for travelling in 
Upper Styria, with which country he is intimately ac- 
quainted, and where he passes a considerable portion of 
the year. His residence, he told us, and pointed out on 
the map, is at a place called Vordernberg, where he takes 
the active superintendence of some extensive iron-works, 
which he invited us to examine, promising to be our 
guide. 

In conversing about our projected tour in Upper Styria, 
we felt into a number of collateral topics; and I think I 
have seldom met with any persons who appeared so 
thoroughly well informed upon all he professed any ac- 
quaintance with, or whose knowledge seemed to be more 
general and exact. It is true he is a prince ; and we in- 
sensibly, and perhaps instinctively, give more weight to 
merit in such a quarter than we might do if we found 
■similar attainments and talents in a lower sphere. On 
the other hand, the very circumstance of his being so pe- 
culiarly, and some people might say disadvantageously 
placed, tends to sharpen the jealous observation of those 
who converse with him. So that, in fact, his elevated 
rank exposes him to a much more severe scrutiny than 
he would have to endure if he belonged to a lower station. 
But the Archduke John of Austria need fear no such cross- 
examinations — for what he really knows, or thinks, he 
gives out with such perfect frafikness, that every one is 



THE ARCHDUKE JOHN OF AUSTRIA. 67 

convinced of the entire sincerity of his opinions, and 
places reliance on his statement of facts. Without the 
least fuss or ostentation, he is allowed hy all who know 
hinrto be the most obliging and friendly of men. His 
early life was passed in active and extensive intercourse 
with the world, both as a practical statesman and a soldier 
in command of armies. Latterly, while merely a coun- 
try gentleman and man of science and letters, his innate 
good taste, and remarkably good sense, combined with 
genuine public spirit, have rendered his many excellent 
qualities extensively current in Styria, where he almost 
constantly resides. An unworthy person placed in his 
situation would soon be found out, like a base coin gilded, 
which the friction of the world soon expels from circula- 
tion. But a truly virtuous prince, like pure gold, acquires 
from the discipline of society a fresh impress and a ster- 
ling value w^hich fit him more and more for the uses of 
the country in proportion as he becomes known. 

The Archduke John who, many people think, ought to 
have been made governor of Styria, has been allowed to 
remain a simple citizen of the state, except, indeed, that 
he has long been at the head of the engineer department 
of the Austrian army. In his humble and quiet capacity 
of a country gentleman, he has done an immense deal for 
Styria, and perhaps all that could have been done under 
its peculiar circumstances. He has set agoing numerous 
agricultural societies, which have greatly improved the 
cultivation of the whole province. He has also establish- 
ed a splendid museum at Gratz, and endowed lectureships 
which embrace many useful branches of knowledge. But 
the chief good he has done, as I understand from well-in- 
formed Styrians, has been by making himself personally 
acquainted with almost every man in the country, and 
encouraging all classes to persevere in their respective 
callings with industry and cheerfulness. He is, in short, 
like a good landlord of an immense estate, whose chief 
pride and pleasure lie in advancing the welfare of his 
tenants. The Archduke's exertions, indeed, are even 
more disinterested, since but a small portion of the whole 
is his own property. 



68 THE ARCHDUKE JOHN OP AUSTRIA. 

It is perhaps a pity that there is no chance of his becom- 
ing Emperor of Austria,since most writers seem agreed that 
a pure despotism, if administered by a thoroughly virtuous 
and able man, is not only calculated to conduce to the pre- 
sent happiness of its subjects, but may give, in such hands, 
the best chance for the gradual introduction of those ame- 
liorations of which the system is capable. It answers no 
practical purpose, either to demonstrate that a system of 
government is bad, or to introduce reforms so unsuitable 
to the tastes and habits of the nation, that they take no 
root. The history of Austria, under the Emperor Joseph, 
uncle to the Archduke of whom I am speaking, shows 
too clearly that the evil is merely aggravated by prema- 
ture or' ill-judged changes. But were a truly patriotic 
and observant man at the head of such a state as Austria, 
he might have it in his power (or at least so it is supposed 
by many people), without the formidable machinery of a 
revolution, to establish many improvements, calculated 
not only to endure and become national, and to do good 
in themselves, but to spread wider and wider the circle of 
genuine and legitimate reform, in the sense of ameliora-- 
tion. In the mean time Austria is prosperous, chiefly 
because, after a long period of war, and every kind of po- 
litical disorganziation, she is allowed the most perfect 
tranquillity ; and with certain exceptions, which I shall 
take an opportunity of pointing out, the country enjoys 
a degree of contentment which is very remarkable, all 
things considered, and especially when many circum- 
stances are taken into account, which in our eyes are 
revolting in the highest degree. 

Some months afterwards, in the spring of 1835, we had 
an opportunity of availing ourselves of the Archduke's 
obliging invitation to pay him a visit at his iron works in 
Vordernberg, which lie deep amongst the hills of Upper 
Styria. As Vordernberg is elevated sixteen or eighteen 
hundred feet above the country we left, we came in con- 
tact with the snow, not eternal snow and great glaciers, it 
is true, but good honest snow wreaths, many feet deep, 
and continued from the preceding winter. 

As we had made a sad bungle of our visit the autumn 



THE ARCHDUKE JOHX OP AUSTRIA. 69 

before, we took care to be better informed tbis time as to 
his Imperial Highness's habits; and having on this occa- 
sion, as we thought, ascertained the exact minute when he 
dined, we drove up to the door at least half an hour before 
the time, thinking to be invited as a matter of course. 
We were much mistaken, for after ringing repeatedly, 
the door was opened by a venerable butler-looking do- 
mestic, who seemed mightily puzzled by a carriage full of 
company coming upon him at that moment. As he said 
the Archduke was out, I gave him my card, and was just 
driving away, when a secretary sort of man, with spec- 
tacles on nose and pen in hand, came flustering into 
the rain, which was pouring on his bald pate. He seem- 
ed to know perfectly who and what we were, and lament- 
ed that his Imperial Highness was not at home. 

" I suppose," added he, in a half doubting, half suggest- 
ing voice, "I suppose you will dine at the inn; after which 
the Archduke may have returned, and be ready to receive 
you." 

Here, then, for the second time, were all our fond 
hopes of a dinner with the Archduke knocked down, and 
we drove to the worst possible inn in the worst possible 
humour. The day was wretched: the rain fell in torrents, 
the hills were encumbered with mist, the ground lay 
bathed in mud and melting snow ankle-deep. The only 
thing in the way of victuals which the house could pro- 
vide was miserable weak soup, so tinged with saffron that 
no one could get beyond the first spoonful: and we sat in 
a cold, comfortless, dark, naked parlour, waiting till the 
horses should be sufficiently rested to bowl down again 
into the civilized world. 

At length I bethought me of an expedient to pass the 
time, and sending for the landlord, I begged to know what 
was to be seen in Vordernberg. 

"Oh!" cried he, "you can take a view of the smelting 
furnaces, and see the process of preparing our beautiful 
iron for the markets of all the world— there is nothing 
like it any where else." 

And without giving us time to make any remark, he 
ran off, calling out as he went, "I'll send out instantly and 
■ , 7 



70 THE ARCHDUKE JOHN OP AUSTRIA. 

learn when they will be ready at the nearest forge to 
draw off the metal. '^ 

In ten minutes more we were all under weigh on a 
voyage of information, it could hardly be called of disco- 
very, still less of pleasure; for no one but a farmer takes 
delight in rain, and it fell upon us now in a style to have 
gratified the heart of the thirstiest husbandman in Styria 
after a twelvemonths' drought. 

Be this as it may, we had to paddle through the mud 
over our shoe tops, under the guidance of a most obsequi- 
ous landlord, who, with a huge red umbrella, guarded one 
of the ladies, while a strapping lass, who acted the part of 
waiter at the inn, carried my daughter in her arms as 
easily as if she had been a kitten. It was pleasant to get 
under the shelter at last. The workmen, who waited only 
for our coming, dashed their bars against the closed ori- 
fice of the furnace, and gave vent to the molten iron. In 
one instant the fiery torrent flowed out in a manner won- 
derfully resembling in miniature the eruptions of Vesuvius 
we had witnessed the year before. So much so, that I would 
really recommend any one wishing to explain the nature 
and appearance of a stream of lava to those who unhappily 
have never had the grand pleasure of beholding that no- 
blest of all terrestrial phenomena, to carry his friends to a 
large smelting furnace, and there begin his lecture on vol- 
canic geology. . 

Whilst we were enjoying this sight, and amusing our- 
selves by tracing analogies between it and the volcanoes 
we had seen, and listening to the explanations- of our host 
and the workmen, the Archduke's secretary — he. of the 
spectacles, who had given us the broad hint to take dinner 
at the public house — -burst in, breathless, upon us- — said he 
had been chasing us over half the village to present his 
Imperial Highness's compliments, and to say that he would 
be glad to see us at his furnace, after which he hoped we 
would do him the pleasure to dine with him at four 
o'clocli. 

This communication brightened our prospects; and as 
the Prince's furnace was close at hand, we again sallied 
forth in the rain and mud, and were mojst kindly received 



THE ARCHDUKE JOHN OF AUSTRIA. 71 

by the Archduke himself at the door of his workshop. 
There we saw a second eruption, and enjoyed the benefit 
of a fuller and clearer, and more scientific explanation of 
the whole process than our host of the Garter could give 
us. We now learned that the said host had all along 
known privately that we were to dine with the Duke — 
not Duke Humphry, as we had begun, with great reason, 
to fear — but with Duke John, who at last, as if to make 
up for our cold fare at his vineyard in the autumn before, 
gave us a capital feast. 

I may perhaps be excused for naming the dishes, in 
such an out of the way and unpromising corner of the 
^lobe. There was fish, wiiich they called trout, but it 
was more like salmon, and being just taken from the 
stream, and cooked to a second, it was superb. There 
was venison, too, from the adjacent hills — not mock veni- 
son, such as they gave us in Hungary — but venison fit for 
an alderman; and last of all, a souflet worthy of Very's or 
Beauvilliers',nill racy and hot, and well served, without 
fuss, and c[uitc beconiing a noble Prince who chooses to 
live retired from the world. 

The fates had decided, however, that although we should 
have the honour of dining with his Imperial Highness, he 
should not dine with us; for it appeared he had already 
dined at noon, according to the fashion of the spot. But 
he sat down to table with us, and conversed in the most 
agreeable style, confirming the opinion we had originally 
formed, that a more simple-mannered, or more agreeable 
and well-informed gentleman is very rarely to be met 
with in any rank of life, or in any country in the world. 

The Archduke John conforms to all the habits of the 
people about him; and being the chief in wealth and im- 
portance of the great mining proprietors at Vordernberg, 
he uses his influence — and most successfully — to render 
the population happy and prosperous. Previously to his 
settling there, the miners had been for ages in a state of 
bitter rivalry, and almost of open hostility; but he, in a 
quiet way, and so as to wound no man's pride, soon proved 
to them that each and all would gain more by a cordial 
union of interests, and companionship in labour, than by 



72 THE ARCHDUKE JOHN OF AUSTRIA. 

pulling and tearing in opposite directions. The blessing? 
of national peace, which were beginning to be felt in that 
unhappy country, came opportunely in aid of the Arch- 
duke's benevolent and public-spirited measures; and I un- 
derstand, from those who know all the circumstances well, 
that there is not in the world a happier, or more flourish- 
ing set of people, than these miners now are. It was 
pleasing to see that wherever this amiable Prince appear- 
ed, the people stepped forward and kissed his hand, not 
with an air of servility, but of cordial respect and attach- 
ment. Indeed, it was difficult to recognise, under the 
coarse dress, and simple manners of a miner, the leader 
once of mighty armies, in the fierce contests which hi^ 
country had waged with Napoleon ; and still a man of the 
highest rank and consequence, in whose veins runs the 
noblest royal blood in Europe! 

The Archduke, as I have already said, passes most of 
his time in the country, residing at Vienna only during a 
certain number of weeks, which are considered indispen- 
sable, and according to etiquettes f|,om which not even he 
is exempt in that most formal of courts. His chief occu- 
pations are, first, superintending the operations of the great 
trigonometrical survey of Austria, of which, as chief of the 
engineer department, he has long had the entire control; 
secondly, directing the great iron works at Vordernberg; 
and, lastly, visiting his estates in Lower Styria, where his 
extensive vineyards are situated. His chief amusement 
is the arduous and rather dangerous hunt of the chamois 
goat; a sport which in that country takes — and, I am told 
by good authority, well supplies — the place of our fox- 
hunting; only it is described as vastly more laborious, and 
requiring its admirers, of whom the Archduke John is 
one of the most passionate, to live for days together 
amongst the glaciers and eternal snows of the Alps. 

Another of his amusements is the encouragement of sci- 
ence at Gratz, and elsewhere in Styria; and as he sets 
about every thing in the most unpretending way, and by his 
gentle and elegant manners conciliates all parties, his 
knowledge on these subjects is received not with jealousy 
or suspicion, but with that degree of personal favour which 



*rHE Archduke johx op Austria. 73 

insures the success of every undertaking to which he 
wishes well. Upon the whole, there probably have been 
few men in any station, and not many princes, who have 
proved greater benefactors to their country. Very few 
men, indeed, have the means, even if they had the dispo- 
sition, and talents, and experience requisite for so great a 
task ; and it is in the highest degree pleasing to witness the 
ejffect of so fortunate a combination of circumstances in the 
person of one individual. 

I forgot to -mention that the Archduke John, instead of 
marrying an ill-favoured, starched princess, out of some 
foreign land, and from some cold motive of family or per- 
sonal ambition, or tortuous state policy, chose to himself a 
wife from those ranks amongst whom it is his taste, and 
what he feels t© be his duty, to pass his life. At the time 
of our visit to the Archduke's vineyard, we could not speak 
a word of German, while the lady could not speak a word 
of any thing else; and as at our second visit she did not 
make her appearance, our personal acquaintance is but 
small. But nothing surely can be more satisfactory thati 
to know, that if the Archduke had taken the survey of 
Europe — as he probably did — in search of a partner, he 
could not have chosen more wisely for his own happiness ; 
and if this be so, how well may he not afford to set the 
court etiquettes, and all their quarterings, at defiance ! 

During dinner at Vordernberg, the Archduke entertained 
us with an account of the peculiar nature of the iron-works 
in that neighbourhood. We already knew that the iron of 
Styria was not only extensively used on the continent, but 
was sent in large quantities to America. He also explained 
to us that this was chiefly due to the chemical advantages 
'given to it by nature, over most of the irons in Europe, in- 
cluding even the Swedish and the English. The combi- 
nations which nature makes, may indeed sometimes be 
imitated by art, but seldom so effectually, it seems, and not 
often without an expense which gives a preponderating ad- 
vantage in commerce to such places as Styria, where an 
important part of the work is ready done. The Archduke^ 
at least told us, that although the English beat the Styrians 
hollow in the processes of refining iron, in making some 



74 THE GERMAN LANGUAGE. 

kinds of steel, and especially in the manufacture of tools 
and all kinds of cutlery, still they are not able to compete 
with his countrymen in the markets of Europe, in conse- 
quence of the native excellence of the material found in 
the mines of Vordernbers:. 

"There is a tradition,'^ said he, "of very long standing 
amongst our miners here, which speaks to this point. 
When the barbarians from the regions north of the Danube 
drove the Romans from this province of Styria, then call- 
ed Noricum, the Genius of the Mountains, willing to do 
the new inhabitants a favour, appeared to the conquerors, 
and said, — ' Take your choice: Will you have gold mines 
for a year ? — silver for twenty years? — or iron for ever ?' 
Our wise ancestors, who had just begun to learn the true 
relative value of the precious metals, by ascertaining, 
practically, that their rude swords were an overmatch for 
all the wealth of the Romans, at once decided to accept iron 
for ever !'' 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE GERMAN LANGUAGE. 

On returning to Hainfeld, after our first visit to the 
Archduke, at his vineyard, we found that our indefatiga- 
ble friend the Countess had cut out fresh work for us, in 
the shape of a tour in Upper Styria, which she urged us to 
make before the season should set in so severely as to 
render travelling disagreeable. It was now getting late in 
October, and an occasional touch of frost, even in the low 
situation in which we were, made us shudder when we 
thought of encountering the Alpine roads of the upper 
province. But the Countess pressed the matter so much, 
and she had made so many preparations, that, as we had 
no particular objection, except what arose from our being 
remarkably comfortable where we were, she prevailed on 



THE GERMAN 'LANGUAGE. 75 

US to say we should set off in one of her ladyship's light 
carriages, on the 20th of Octoher. 

The Countess's professed ohject in sending us upon this 
expedition to the hills, was to show us the beauties of the 
grander parts of her adopted country, and to give us the 
means of becoming acquainted with a far more manly and 
intelligent population than that of Lower Styria, of which 
alone, as yet, we had any knowledge. But I now verily 
believe that the good lady's real object — though probably 
unavowed even to herself — was to induce us, by any means, 
to spin out the time till the winter should arrive, and fairly 
block us up in her castle for the season. 

For the present, however, our jaunt was interrupted by 
the slight illness of one of the children, and likewise by a 
change of the weather from mild to bitter ; and as these 
causes co-operated to detain us from day to day, we finally 
gave up our intended tour, and resolved not to leave Hain- 
feld for any such minor purpose, but to remain quiet till 
ready to start for Vienna. We made our arrangements 
accordingly for setting off on the 10th of November, think- 
ing that a visit of nearly six weeks, with such a party as 
ours, was quite as long as we could (Recently propose to 
make. But in this estimate we reckoned without our 
hostess; for when, op the first of the month, I ventured to 
mention the subject to her, and said, that in ten days or so, 
we meant to set off for Vienna, I thought the good old lady 
would have expired on the spot. Indeed, so earnest were 
her entreaties for us to stay, and so touching the appeals 
which she made to us not so soon to desert her, just as she 
was becoming acquainted with ourselves and the children, 
that, having really no particular motive for going away, we 
agreed to remain a little longer. 

"Oh ! do not say a little longer," she exclaimed ; "do — 
oh, do make up your minds to stay the winter here. You 
know not what it is to travel in winter in Germany ; it 
will destroy your children, and you yourselves will have 
no pleasure in it. If you are not perfectly comfortable 
here — if there is any thing in the world that money will 
provide — do, I entreat you, mention it. My sole wish is 
to make you happy here, and to enjoy, as long as I can, the 



76 THE GERMAN LANGUAGE. 

society of my country-folks j for I feel — I know^that yott 
are the last of them I shall ever see. Human nature can- 
not long stand out against the accumulation of sorrow and 
of bodily disease with which I am pressed to the earth ; 
and it would be cruel in yoa to deny me the only pleasure 
now left me in this weary world. You will have plenty 
of time to travel in Germany next summer.^^ 

I don't know how far these appeals might have proved 
effectual, had we not found ourselves very agreeably situa- 
ted in the old castle, or had we been called upon by any 
pressing duty to go elsewhere. But as amusement was 
our only motive in travelling, and as nothing could be 
more entirely to our mind than the style of life which we 
were allowed to pass at Hainfeld, we felt halfrinclined to 
take the Countess at her word, and fix ourselves under her 
roof for the whole winter. But this, upon reflection, we 
could not help thinking would be rather too strong a mea- 
sure, and might prove a gene upon all parties, on farther 
trial. After a good deal of deliberation, thereiore, we finally 
compromised matters by naming the 1st of December as 
the day of our departure, instead of the 10th of November. 
To avoid further discussion, which I saw agitated her, I 
wrote our determination on a slip of paper, and sent it. In 
a few minutes I received the following characteristic an- 
swer : — 

" My Dear Sir, 

"Every day Mrs. Hall and you bestow on me, I re- 
ceive gratefully as a blessing. Had Heaven and you 
vouchsafed to grant my prayers, you would have nestled 
in poor Hainfeld as well as you could, till the breath of 
spring invited you to launch into the world. Faithfully 
yours, " P .'' 

Thus, for one month more, at all events, we were to be 
domesticated in our very snug quarters; and as the Coun- 
tess no longer urged us to make any expeditions from 
home, we set about amusing ourselves with what was at 
hand, and fell into regular habits, which every day tended 
so strongly to confirm, that before long we ourselves be- 



THE GERMAN LANGUAGE. 77 

gan to look to the period of our departure with almost as 
much regret as the poor Countess herself did. 

The even tenor of our own happy life in this remote 
and retired corner of the world, furnished but few promi- 
nent points of interest for narration. At first the Coun- 
tess could not imagine that we, who had been so much in 
the busy world, could possibly be happy without further 
society than what she herself and our own family affordetl ; 
and in order, as she said, to relieve the solitude of Hain- 
feld, she invited all sorts and conditions of people to visit 
her. Some of these, whose visits, unfortunately, were 
short and far between, proved uncommonly agreeable and 
useful acquaintances. Others were of such a milk and 
w^ater description that they merely came in our way. 
While again, one or two rendered themselves so particu- 
larly disagreeable, that had the Countess not ejected them 
we must have speedily ejected ourselves. 

Although, as I have mentioned, she was irrecoverably 
bed-ridden, our poor hostess possessed an acuteness of 
judgment, which in a great degree supplied the place of 
locomotion, and gave her, by some means or other — the 
machiner}^ of which we could never perfectly discover — 
a. most exact knowledge of all that was passing in the 
castle ; so that nothing was said or done but she seemed 
to know of it. What was still more unaccountable, she 
possessed a sort of magical power of getting at what was 
thought and felt by all her guests. If she exercised this 
kind of surveillance over her chance friends, it may be 
supposed that we sojourners did not escape. In fact the 
whole energies of her mind were evidently employed, 
night as well as day, in trying to discover how best she 
could make our situation so agreeable to ourselves that we 
should have nq wish to move. With all her discernment, 
however, it was some time before she fully admitted the 
fact of our being most happy when most alone ; that is to 
say, with no other company but herself; — though the 
genuine modesty of her mind could by no means allow 
her to imagine it possible that her conversation could sup- 
ply, and amply, too, the place of a more extended circle. 
• People may differ greatly as to the true import of the 



78 THE GERMAN LANGUAGE. 

expression "being well employed,"- but if a person's time 
be fully and agreeably filled up, and no obvious duty is 
neglected, it cannot, I think, be otherwise than usefully 
employed. Be this as it may — our chief, and indeed al- 
most only occupation, properly so called, at Hainfeld, 
was the study of German. 

We had been not a little humiliated on the occa- 
sion of a visit to the great quicksilver mines of Idria, to 
find ourselves quite helpless. In fact, we were virtually 
deaf and dumb; for French, and every other language of 
which we had any smattering, proved totally useless, and 
at last, after in vain trying to explain to the people at the 
inn that we wished something to eat, I remember being 
reduced to the necessity of sketching an egg, and then 
making signs for breaking and eating it ! After this ad- 
venture of the egg, I made a vow that I would learn Ger- 
man, at whatever cost of, labour. This was a rash vow, 
as almost any person will find who tries the experiment, 
and one which will be sure to prove a very weighty un- 
dertaking to those who, like myself, have unfortunately 
not only no knack, or facility, for learning languages, but 
have organs so constructed as to render the acquisition of 
any foreign tongue a work- of real difficulty, and that ^f 
German well nigh impossible. 

Every one remembers the story of the Minister's 
horror, when, after a life spent in eager pursuit of office, 
he for the first time beheld his secretary approach with 
an enormous bundle of papers. But I question if his dis- 
may was greater than mine, when, within an hour after I 
had made this magnanimous resolution about the study of 
German, I encountered the following formidable words 
in a newspaper : — 

Privilegiumsverzichtleistung! 
Subarrendirungsverhandlung!! 

But I was consoled by the reflection, that scarcely 
any thing is so difficult as it looks, and that if the 
trouble was great, great was the reward, and so forth. In 
aid of these common places, I found I had the eager en- 



THE GERMAN LANGUAGE. 79 

couragement of the Countess, who was enchanted with 
my resolution, and offered to be my preceptress — an offer 
which made the natives who were present smile ; for she 
herself, good lady, spoke a very strange dialect, which, 
though as they said abundantly intelligible, was any thing 
but pure German. 

In other countries a few years' residence, and even a 
few months, are sufficient to enable gifted — often ungifted 
— people to speak the language fluently and correctly. 
But this will not do in Germany, even in the case of the 
most gifted. Madame de Stael describes the labour in 
strong terms : — 

" Une 6tude tres legere,'^ says she, in her magnificent 
work on that country, " suffit pour apprendre I'ltalien 
et FAnglais ; mais c'est une science que I'AlIemand.^'* 

Now the Countess, who was not very young when she 
came to the country, and was by nature no linguist, and 
probably had never much leisure to make a scientific 
study of the language, contented herself with learning 
merely enough to serve on those occasions when French 
would not answer her purpose, as it generally would in 
the fashionable society of Vienna. With the charming 
literature of Germany, however, she had made herself in- 
timately acquainted, and as she had enjoyed the personal 
acquaintance of many of the distinguished authors who 
have flourished in that country since the end of the last 
century, there could not, in many respects, have been a 
better instructor than she was. Unfortunately, however, 
it was scarcely possible that a less creditable pupil could 
have been found, and the progress I made under her tui- 
tion was wretchedly small. I got up at six o'clock every 
morning, and read hard till breakfast-time at my gram- 
mars and dictionaries, and afterwards worked for several 
hours alone, and always for at least an hour with our ac- 
complished German governess. In the middle of the day 
I went to the Countess's room, where, under her direc- 
tion, and by her aid, I read Kotzebue's plays, or some 
other easy work. I also learned numberless fables by 
heart; talked to every native I could get to listen to me; 

♦ De I'Allemagne, Partie II. Chap. IX. 



80 THE GERMAN LANGUAGE. 

^and, in short, took a world of pains, but all to little or no 
purpose, excepting that I derived much pleasure from 
reading some of the German authors, and in particular the 
plays of Schiller. 

It is indeed a curious fact, that in German it is easier 
to understand verse than prose, a discovery which I made 
long before I read the following remarkable sentence in 
Madame de Stael's book : — " L'Allemand est peutetre la 
seule langue dans laquelle les vers soient plus faciles a 
comprendre que la prose," which, as she goes on to 
explain, arises from the necessity of shortening the sen- 
tences to adapt them to the poetical measure ; whereas in 
prose, where no such necessity exists, the periods often 
extend for more than a page, before the key-word is 
reached, without which the involved sense cannot be un- 
locked. 

It was not till I had spent nearly a year in Germany, 
and after I had read, written, and spoken Germany with 
much diligence and the most constant opportunities of 
hearing it in the country itself, that I learned, with no 
small mortification, that I had all along been proceeding 
&n a wrong svstem, and that the methods which I had 
found sufficient to give me a certam sort of knowledge of 
French and Spanish in Europe, and of Hindostanee and 
Malays in the East, were totally inoperative when applied 
to the formidable German. 

By good fortune, however, I fell in with a truly philo- 
sophical professor of German at Paris, M. Ollendorff, 
author of a new and most luminous method of teaching 
that language. He soon satisfied me of what I had indeed 
myself begun to suspect, that German, to be understood 
properly, must be attacked exactly like mathematics — ^ 
and that as there is no " royal road" to knowledge in the 
one case, so is there none in the other. I gave a sigh or 
two over the ten months' labour I had almost entirely 
thrown away, and commenced the study anew through 
the medium of M. Ollendorff's method, which well 
deserves the title of the Euclid of German.* After six 

* Nouvelle Methode pour apprendre a lire, a ecrire, et a parler 
une langue en six mois ; appliquee a I'Allemand ; Ouvrage entiere- 



THE GERMAN LANGUAGE. 81 

months' close application, I can venture to pronounce that 
by his method alone, so far as I have been able to under- 
stand the subject, can this very difficult, but very charming 
language, be taught without confusion. To those who,, 
like me, have none of that readiness by which, instinctively 
as it were, foreign tongues are breathed in by some people, 
and are made use of seemingly without effort, such a 
method is quite invaluable. By it the scholar advances 
step by step, understands clearly and thoroughly every 
thing he reads, and as he goes on, he becomes sensible 
that all he learns he retains, and all that he retains is 
useful and practically applicable. At the same time, he 
scarcely knows how he has got hold of it, so slightly marked 
are the shades of daily progression ; and so gentle is the 
rise, that he feels no unpleasant fatigue on the journey. 
Of course the student is called upon to exert no small 
degree of patient application, and he must consent to 
devote a considerable portion of his time to this pursuit ; 
but he will have the encouraging conviction that every 
particle of effort is well bestowed. 

I wish I could persuade this admirable teacher to publish 
his work in English and in England, and to fix himself 
in London, where his abilities, his knowledge, and his 
skill in teaching so difficult a language in the most agree- 
able and patient manner I evep- witnessed, would soon 
earn for him the distinction he deserves. I write in these 
strong terms of M. Ollendorff \s method, because I feel 
convinced that a familiarity with it would go far to spread 
the knowledge of this delightful language in England, 
where, of all countries in the world, it is most likely to be 
duly appreciated. The almost matchless beauties of 
German, not only from their own excellence, but from 
their analogy to those of our own literature, and the great 
similarity of character between the two people, are calcu- 
lated to produce a much greater effect with us than else- 
where. Independently also of the wholesome pleasure 
which belongs to an elegant pursuit, the study of German 

ment neuf. " Par H. G. Ollendorff. Paris, chez I'Auteur, 67 Rue 
de Richelieu, et Barrois fils libraire, 14 Rue de Richelieu, et Hei-^ 
deloff et Campe, 16 Rue Vivenne." 

8 



82 THE DAY AT HAINPELD. 

may do much good, not only by the generous cultivation 
of the national taste, and the vigorous exercise of individual 
thought which it requires, but by its placing within our 
reach an immense store of mental merchandize, in exchange 
for which the labour of six months is the cheapest possible 
payment. 



CHAPTER IX, 



THE DAY AT HAINPELD. 



The footsteps of time fell so lightly at Hainfeld, that 
I find it difficult to mark their traces ; for after we had 
consented to remain a month longer, at the Countess's 
earnest etitreaty, we began to consider ourselves really at 
home, and to take those regular measures for our comfort 
and occupation, which it is impossible to think of when 
the hot fit of the traveller's fever is upon us. 

We breakfasted in our own apartments, and as it was 
established as a by-law that nothing should there be spoken 
but German, we found it a most amusing meal. The 
children soon got far a-head of their parents, and spoke 
with ease and correctness, long before either of us could 
make even part of a sentence out. The facility with 
which young organs take up new sounds, and employ 
with perfect correctness, and, as it were, instinctively, the 
most complicated rules of grammar, is truly astonishing. 
This arises, in part, no doubt, from their minds being 
unencumbered with too many ideas, and from their judg- 
ment not being entangled by too great a fastidiousness in 
the arrangement and expression of their thoughts. At all 
events, they readily find the means of saying, with un- 
conscious accuracy, whatever they please, while their 
seniors hesitate, lose patience, and become confused- in 
their vain endeavours after correctness. 

I should have mentioned, that before breakfast I had 



THE DAY AT HAINPELD. 83 

every morning^to make a written report to the Countess 
of the condition of all our party. The circumstances 
which gave rise to this arrangement are as follows :^- 

I have already stated, that our hostess, though confined 
to bed, contrived to make herself acquainted with every 
thing that was going on in the castle. But she had too much 
taste, as well as too much good sense, to carry these secret 
investigations into our private apartments. Yet it was 
precisely to what passed there that her chief curiosity, or 
rather her chief anxiety, was now directed. She took it 
into her head that my little boy, then somewhat more 
than a year old, was rather delicate in health, — though, 
in fact, he was as stout as an infant Hercules; and she 
took similar fancies with respect to the others, and some- 
times honoured Papa and Mamma with a little equally 
groundless alarm. Now, as a considerable portion of this 
excellent old lady's night was passed in weary watchful- 
ness, in consequence of her painful maladies, she generally 
- — though without the shadow of a reason — worked herself 
into a double degree of fever about the children before 
morning came. At daybreak, accordingly, old Joseph, 
the butler, used to be summoned to her bedside, in order 
that he might report if there had been any remarkable 
stir during the night in our wing of the castle — -any calls 
for assistance — -any message for the doctor ; and when 
the old soldier smiled at all these inquiries, and said he 
believed we had all slept like tops, he was scolded for his. 
inhumanity, and despatched to our quarters, to learn, if 
possible, whether we were dead or alive. 

The honest fellow, who took the direct and soldier-like 
method -of going straight to his point, rapped at my door, 
and stated that the Countess having the day before heard 
the young Graf, or Count, as the servants persisted in 
calling the poor boy, cry twice; or having observed one 
of the young ladies look pale, was quite uneasy till she 
could know how they had passed the night. This mes- 
sage rendered it necessary that I should go to the^.nursery 
to ascertain how the case stood, and thus I was often called 
upon to disturb both the young Graf and his sisters, and 
the old folks too, long before the fitting hour; and after 



84 THE DAY AT HAINFELD. 

all, Joseph's report, we found, never satisfied the Countess. 
It was either too incomplete for her curiosity, or too full 
for her anxiety, by the details suggesting fresh alarm. So 
that, when one of us went to her room, as usual, about ten 
o'clock, we generally found her under some extraordinary 
delusion as to what was passing with us. So strongly 
sometimes did these fancies affect her, that she believed 
she knew much better what we were doing, than we did 
ourselves, and frequently she wished us to send for the 
physician, or to persuade us to let her doctor the chil- 
dren, though they had been, and still were, in perfect 
health ! 

All this might have been laughed at, so far as it con- 
cerned ourselves; but as it seriously affected the Countess's 
peace of mind, I bethought me of a device which correct- 
ed most of the evil, and gave her infinite pleasure. I of- 
fered to send her every morning an official written bulle- 
tin of the health of the whole party; and as I had by this" 
time learned her taste for the details of domestic gossip, 
and observed the singular accuracy and minuteness of her 
information respecting every other department of the cas- 
tle, and indeed of the whole estate, this was not difficult. 
Having thus elected myself her ladyship's spy extraordi- 
nary upon my own family, I completed the circle of her 
secret knowledge by reporting every single thing that 
passed in our apartments. 

The visit which one of us always made to the Countess, 
about ten o'clock, was merely for a moment to wish her 
good-morning, or to furnish her with any farther particu- 
lars she might be anxious about respecting the preceding 
night. She took that opportunity of asking when the 
carriage would be wanted to give the children a drive, or 
what we should like to have for dinner; in short, whether 
there was any thing within the compass of Hainfeld or 
fifty miles round which we had the least wish to obtain. 
For example, she one day heard my eldest girl say she 
liked chocolate for breakfast; and though there was a very 
good sort to be had in the village of Feldbach, hard by, it 
was not nearly good enough for the Countess's notions of 
hospitality. So a man was actually despatched on horse- 



THE DAY AT HAlNi^ELD. 83 

back, at three o'clock next morning, to Gratz, between 
thirty and forty miles off, to procure a particular kind of 
chocolate made according to a receipt of the Princess of 
Salms. In like manner, when she found that some of us 
preferred tea to coffee, she was not content with what the 
village, or even Vienna could produce, but wrote off in- 
stantly to a merchant at Trieste to send her, not a pound 
or two, but a whole chest of the best and most recently 
imported tea! 

Our protests against this sort of extravagance were all 
in vain; and when, one day, I incidentally threw out some 
allusion to the inroad we were making upon her establish- 
ment, she rang the bell, sent for the Verwalter or bailiff, 
made him bring her the last month's accounts, and took a 
world of pains to satisfy me that we cost her scarcely any 
thing additional. 

'J See," she exclaimed, ^^ all the meat, poultry and milk 
which are used in the house, come from my farm; even 
the flour which makes the bread, is sent from my mill- — 
the vegetables are from my garden, Sind the fuel from my 
own forests. The other expenses are quite inconsider- 
able." 

So far did this generous old lady carry her notions of 
hospitality, that she wished even to pay our postages; and 
I think she was a little hurt because we took measures to 
prevent the shopkeepers at the village from inserting all 
our purchases in her accounts, according to her secret 
directions. 

After the short visit we paid to the Countess about ten 
o'clock, we returned to our rooms, while she " got up," 
as she good-humouredly called making her toilet. This 
operation — to other ladies a pleasure — was to our poor 
friend, all of whose movements were accompanied by suf- 
fering, a most painful and protracted task. After what I 
have mentioned of her taste and habits, I need scarcely 
say that she dressed in tne old style, but always with 
much neatness; and being bolstered up by some eight or 
ten pillows of different forms and dimensions, she received 
her company almost as if she were sitting. As the bed, 
too, was rather low, her face came just on a level with 



86 THE DAY AT HAINFELD. 

those of her visitors, and as she had no deafness, the con- 
versation was carried on quite as easily as if the party had 
been sitting in a drawing-room. Her bed, which was un- 
usually wide, was divided into two compartments; one of 
these she occupied herself, the other presented a strange 
mixture of order and confusion. As her curiosity about 
every thing in the external world, from, which she was 
now shut out, had rather increased than abated by her in- 
ability to follow its movements in person, she applied 
herself with great diligence to reading all sorts of books, 
and her friends being well aware of her desire to see 
every thing new, took care to furnish her whatever works 
of merit appeared. In like manner she had newspapers 
sent to her from every quarter; and in spite of all she said 
about the pain and difficulty of writing, she contrived to 
keep up an active correspondence with persons who, 
knowing her love for information and gossip, supplied her 
plentifully. 

Like most people, she fully intended to read every book 
and pamphlet which came to her, and conscientiously re^ 
solved to answer eyery letter. Like the rest of the world, 
however, who possess greater activity than she could boast 
pf, she redeemed this pledge to her conscience, by doing 
little more than glancing over the books, reading the lead- 
ing articles in the political journals, and replying to one 
letter in ten. In ordinar}^ life this leads simply to more 
or less remorse, fresh resolutions, to be again broken, and 
a degree of disorder amongst one's papers, dependent on 
the habits of the individual. Other people may run away 
from the arrears of their unanswered letters, and uncut 
booiis, but the poor Countess, being chained to her bed, 
was obliged to allow the huge accumulation to be always 
beside her, like a permanent nightmare. I have counted 
in one file three dozen unopened publications in English, 
French, and German, besides pamphlets innumerable, and 
endless files of newspapers. 1 shudder sympathetically, 
when I recollect the bundles of docqueted, and the pyra- 
mids of undocqueted letters; nay, not unfrequently of un- 
opened letters, of several weeks standing. In addition to 
this vast chaos of unstudied literature, stale news, and 



THE DAT AT HAINFELD. 87 

truncated as well as embryo correspondence, lay a sea of 
accounts. There were the " farm accounts/' — the " house 
accounts/'— the "miller's accounts," interspersed with a 
perfect snow-storm of bills, receipted and unreceipted, 
mixed with Austrian bank-notes, and here and there a 
bag of silver money, all in most admired disorder, des- 
tined never to be read up! 

The Countess, it must, however, be stated, was by no 
means careless or disorderly in her arrangements; but she 
undertook more than she could by possibility perform ; 
and as her independent spirit rejected all assistance from 
clerks, " dames de compagnie," or other agencies by which 
old age sometimes attempts to do the work of youth by 
proxy, her business and her pleasures — such as they were 
— necessarily accumulated work beyond the power of her 
feeble hands to discharge. When a book or letter, or 
pamphlet, was required, the bell was rung, and her maid 
Pepe, a very clever person, sent to the farther side of 
the bed to search for it. The abigail had address enough 
on these occasions, so far as she could take the liberty un- 
observed, to put things a little to rights ; but it would have 
been a labour of hours or of days to arrange matters pro- 
perly. 

Had the Countess been laid up in this fashion in any 
other country, she might have been finely pillaged by the 
people about her ; but there is an innate good faith and 
resolute integrity about the Germans, which leads them, 
as a part of their nature, to adopt fair dealing in every 
thing. We had many opportunities of remarking this ad- 
mirable characteristic of the nation, not only during our 
residence at Hainfeld, but afterwards in travelling through 
other parts of the country ; and I hope one day to be able 
to give some interesting and instructive instances in point, 
which occurred to us in the course of our subsequent long 
journey. 

Until noon, we seldom saw any thing of the Countess, 
except during the short visit about ten o'clock, which was 
occupied, as I have said, chiefly in explanations of points 
in the bulletin of the night, and in settling what we should 
best like for dinner. The interval between that hour and 



88 THE DAY AT HAINFELD. 

mid-day was spent by us in studying German, writing let- 
ters, superintending the education of the elder children, or 
finally in putting young Master Basil Sidmouth de Roos 
to sleep. As the comfort of the afternoon depended essen- 
tially, as I shall explain presently, on this small gentle- 
man's getting a sleep in the middle of the day ; and as he 
took it into his head that nobody but his Papa could, or at 
all events should, hush him to his morning's rest, I was 
obliged, partly on account of the peace of the family, and 
partly on that of the Countess, to enact the part of under 
nursery-maid for half an hour, almost every forenoon for 
some months. 

It is not so easy as those who have not tried the experi- 
ment may suppose, to hush a child of fifteen months to 
sleep. The business, indeed, was not quite new to me ; 
but as I found my present task much harder than it had 
ever been before, I was obliged to have recourse to addi- 
tional methods. One of these consisted in singing, as well 
as I might, a drinking song I had once heard in a cofiee- 
room in Ireland. As I had not a single note of music in 
my soul, or at all events in my throat, I had nothing far 
it but to follow the example of the monks who, in a similar 
case (I do not mean in hushing babies, but in chaunting 
offices), use a deep groan or grunt as a running bass. To 
my little man, however, this seemed the most charming 
melody possible ; and no sooner did he hear the sounds, 
than ofThe went in as deep an accompaniment as his tiny 
organs would admit of, which he continued till the soporific 
monotone set him to sleep. 

This habit of his led to rather a ludicrous scene some 
months afterwards, at a village near Saltzburg, called 
Berchtesgaden. We had been attracted to the church by 
the sight of a grand procession, and on entering with the 
crowd, found the priest celebrating a marriage. All went 
on soberly till the ghostly father (who had no more voice 
than I have) began to chaunt some portion of the service. 
The instant the well-known sounds reached the child's 
ears, he struck off", at the full stretch of his voice, with 
my Irish drinking song. The surprise of the whole party 
was soon changed into mirth, and the first horror of the 



THE DAY AT HAl^NFELD. 89 

priest into such amusement, that he was forced to intermit 
his chaunt, and join in the irreverent laugh which had 
spread amongst his hearers. 

At twelve o'clock exactly, for she was extremely punc- 
tual, I went oflf to our good hostess's room, where, whatever 
had been her sufferings during the night, however sleep- 
less, she was sure to be found cheerful, and not only ready 
to converse, but eager to hear what was going on, and to 
give her opinion upon every thing and every body, just 
as if she could still mix in society, and influence, as had 
been long her wont, the opinions and actions of other peo- 
ple. 

Her chief object in arranging this visit was nominally 
the study of German ; but the lessons, so far as that went, 
proved little profitable ; for it was scarcely possible for me 
to read ten words before some anecdote occurred to her 
connected with her early intercourse with Sir Walter 
Scott or Dugald Stewart, or her later intercourse with the 
men of letters in Germany ; or it might relate to Napo- 
leon's occupation of Vienna — or to the details of those 
ruinous campaigns which swept like Debacles over the fer- 
tile provinces of Austria — or the topic might be the fash- 
ionable society of the capital, and the endless intrigues of 
the court- — ^or, finally, she would branch off into some spec- 
ulation on the magnificent literature of her adopted country, 
or that of France and England, with all of which she ap- 
peared to be equally familiar. On each and all of these 
topics, and twenty others which I have not mentioned, she 
conversed with equal readiness, and always in the most 
lively and appropriate manner, never lugging any story in 
by the head and shoulders — never exhausting any thing, 
oi* dwelling a moment longer upon any topic than exactly 
suited the taste of her company. Her memory seemed to 
be boundless ; and I have often deeply regretted since that 
I had not — Boswell fashion — taken some notes of her con- 
versation ; for almost all her anecdotes possessed an intrin- 
^ sic general interest beyond their mere point, from being 
connected with men and things in which all the world are 
concerned. 

At one o'clock, or half-past one, my post by the Coun- 



90 THE DAY AT HAINFELD. 

tess's bed-side was taken by Mrs. Hall, sometimes alone, 
and sometimes accompanied by one, or at most two of her 
other guests, of whom, during the early part of our visit at 
Hainfeld, there were generally several parties in the castle 
besides ourselves. In the mean time, I took a smart walk 
over the hills, or strolled with the children in the woods, 
or walked to the village to make some purchase at the 
omniumgatherum shop which supplied not only the castle, 
but the surrounding neighbourhood with every article un- 
der the sun — great and small — from a needle to a plough- 
s-hare. 

By four o'clock all the company having returned from 
their walks, rides, or shooting parties, and dressed for din- 
ner, we assembled in the Countess's room. Generally 
speaking, as I have already mentioned, she found her 
strength unequal to sustain conversation with more than 
one or two persons, but during the half hour which elapsed 
between the dressing bell and the dinner bell, she liked to 
see the whole of her guests at once. The greatest num- 
ber ever assembled, and that occurred only upon one occa- 
sion, was eighteen ; but generally the numbers ranged 
frorn eight to ten or a dozen, including the children, who 
took all their meals with us. During this period the 
Countess selHom made any attempt to join in the general 
conversation, but lay, or rather reclined on her pillows, 
tranquilly listening to the rest. 

When dinner was announced, and we had all left her, 
she sent for the nursery-maid and the child ; and I verily 
believe that the hour, or hour and a half which followed, 
were to her the happiest, in the twenty-four. Her fond- 
ness for the infant, which was excessive, may have been 
due, in some degree, to the recollection of her own, an only 
and most extraordinary child, and all that she had gone 
through on his account. And it so chanced that our boy 
took w^onderfully to her ; and though at first rather fright- 
ened by the strange dress, and appearance, and situation of 
the Countess, he gradually became reassured, and used to 
sit for hours together on her bed. Sometimes he crept 
close up to her face, and laid his cheek by hers, in such 
contrast as to draw many a touching remark from herself, 



THE DAY AT HAINFELD. 91 

and sometimes to squeeze out a tear from the more sensi- 
tive amongst her friends, who knew her sad history. But 
she never shed a tear herself, even in relating to us her bit- 
terest distresses. The whole comfort of this visit, so im- 
portant to the Countess's happiness, depended upon the 
little gentleman being in a good-humour, and that again 
turned upon his having had a due allowance of sleep in 
the forenoon. It was chiefly on this account this I was 
obliged to occupy myself in contributing to his morning 
nap, in the manner I have already described. 

One hears of very wonderful children in most parts of 
the world ; but I am not sure that I ever heard of one 
who excited such unqualified surprise as the Countess's 
son. While his mind appears to have been of the most 
masculine and matured strength, even at a very early age, 
his bodily frame is described as one of extreme feebleness 
and delicacy ; and though some people have supposed 
that the Countess, who devoted her life exclusively to 
him, may have hurt him by over-anxiety, I have learned 
from good authority, that he owed his daily life — so to 
speak — to her unceasing care ; and that such a hot-house 
plant was he, that, had she for an instant relaxed her 
attentions, he must have dropped at once into the grave. 

I could relate many anecdotes of this singular boy, which 
I heard during my stay at Hainfeld ; but I prefer giving 
the direct testimony of an eye-witness, who I am sure, 
from all I have learned, rather understates than overstates 
the fact. The following quotation is from the Travels of 
J. C. Lemaistre, Esq., published in London in 1806, vol. 
ii. p. 358. 

After giving rather an interesting sketch of the Coupt 
and Countess Purgstall, he proceeds as follows : — 

" They have a son who seems to have inherited the 
talents of his parents, whiie, like them, his person is 
slender, and his health delicate At five years old this 
wonderful boy, who may fairly be considered as a prodigy, 
has read various books of science, is well acquainted with 
history and music, and is so versed in geography, for 
which he has a particular turn, that he has lately, without 



92 THE DAY AT HAINFELD. 

any assistance, made a map of Venice for Mrs. Lemaistre, 
which I mean to keep as a curiosity. 

"I begged him yesterday to tell me how I should return 
to England without touching on the Hanoverian, French, 
or Dutch territories, and he instantly traced on the globe 
the only remaining road. He sits on a carpet, surrounded 
with his books ; and when the gravest and most acute 
remarks fall from the lips of this little person, a spirit 
seems to speak rather than a child, and the fine expression 
which sparkles in his countenance tends to increase the 
idea. 

"Among other singularities, he has taught himself to 
write ; but as his models were printed books, he prints his 
letters, and begins from the right hand instead of the left. 
He was born at Vienna ; but having been attended from 
his earliest infancy by a nurse from Aberdeen, he usually 
speaks English, or rather Scotch, his accent being com- 
pletely northern. He also understands the German and 
French languages, the latter of which he acquired with 
inconceivable facility. He is a phenomenon ; and should 
he live and continue to make equal progress in knowledge, 
he will rival the fame of Sir Isaac Newton." 

He did live for some years afterwards — indeed, till the 
age of nineteen — and made astonishing progress in know- 
ledge, especially in mathematics — so much so as to excite 
the admiration of his learned connexion, Dugald Stewart, 
into whose hands some of the boy's papers had been sent 
by his mother after her son's death. Mr. Stewart writes 
in the following terms: — 

"I can no longer delay expressing to you my admiration 
of the truly astonishing powers displa3^ed in these manu- 
scripts. I have certainly never seen any thing which, at 
so early an age, afforded so splendid a promise of mathe- 
matical genius ; and yet I am not sure if they convey to 
me a higher idea of the young writer's philosophical turn 
of thinking than some of his speculations, which have 
been several years in my possession, on the metaphysical 
principles of the modern calcul. 

"When I combine all this," continues the learned 
Professor, " with the specimens of poetical talent which 



THE DAY AT HAINFELD. 93 

I have seen from the same hand, and with what I have 
learned through various channels, of his many other ac- 
complishments — above all, when I reflect on the few and 
short intervals of health he enjoyed during his little span 
of life— ^I cannot help considering him as the most extra- 
ordinary prodigy of intellectual endowments that has ever 
fallen under my knowledge. 

" If I were addressing any one else," concludes the 
Countess's affectionate brother-in-law, "I would say much 
more. But how can I dwell longer on this subject in 
writing to the mother — and such a mother ! — of such a 
son V 

I shall merely remark here, before resuming the des- 
cription of our daily occupations at Hainfeld, that if the 
merits of the poor forlorn Countess's child were of such a 
high order as to engage so remarkably the attention of 
every one who knew him, far and near, we can easily 
understand how her own distress at his loss was so deep 
and irremediable. 

All these things, and their accompanying associations 
being considered, we can the better sympathize with the 
over-anxious and tender solicitude which she showed 
about a stranger's child and its Scotch attendant, accident- 
ally thrown in her way, and under her protection. • 

When dinner was over, the party split into various 
divisions. Some one always went to the Countess, to 
remain a shorter or longer time, according to the humour 
she appeared to be in ; and on that person coming away 
another went to her, so that she was never left alone. As 
we, being permanent guests, considered ourselves the 
Countess's chief attendants, and were certainly, after a 
trial, the persons who best understood her wishes and her 
fluctuating state of health, and were most in her confidence 
as to her likings and disliking*, we endeavoured to arrange 
the evening so that those casual visitors should be most 
with her whom she was most anxious to see ; and that 
those whose conversation was not the most agreeable, 
should be accompanied by some one better suited to 
interest her. 

While the mistress of the house was thus employed in 

9 



94 THE DAY AT HAINFELD. 

receiving her guests, one by one, in turn, the rest of the 
company were occupied in different ways. The children 
and some of the younger and merrier part of the company 
generally waltzed round the billiard table, to the sound 
of an old worn-out harpsichord, and rather to the annoy- 
ance of th€ gentlemen who were knocking the balls about. 
Others established themselves in the little parlour, near 
the only open fire-place in the province of Lower Styria, 
and betook themselves to the newspapers, or to books 
imported from the adjacent library in which the tea-table 
was prepared. 

Later in the evening our hostess's amusement, and a 
very great one it proved, was listening to the Waverley 
Novels, some of which she had never read. This was 
varied by an occasional poem of Lord Byron's, or a scene 
of Shakspeare's, or, if politics ran high, by a peppery 
article from some London newspaper. We had no Eng- ' 
lish newspapers, it is true, but only reprints in Galignani's 
incomparable Messenger, a journal without which the 
Continent would be utterly uninhabitable by any English- 
man who cares a straw for affairs at home, of which he 
can hear little by any other means. 

Nothing, in short, that was striking and original, or ex- 
citing, in politics or in letters, from whatever quarter, or 
in whatever language, came amiss to this most energetic 
of old ladies. Reading aloud to her in some shape or 
other was soon found to be preferable to conversation in 
the evening ; for such was her animation, and the liveli- . 
ness as well as fertility of her fancy, and the ready co- J 
piousness of her memory, that she could never long re- 
main quiet. Thus it too often happened, that she ex- 
hausted her strength before it .was .time, as she quaintly 
said, " to go to bed ;" and in her case, as in that of many 
robuster persons, it required strength to be able to go to 
sleep. We had therefore frequently the mortification of 
learning in the morning, that owing to over exertion to 
entertain her company, our generous hostess had not her- 
self once closed her eyes during the whole of the weary 
night. 

On Tuesdays and Fridays^ in the evening, the post 



THE DAt AT HAINFELD. 95 

came in, generally many days after becoming strictly 
due. This arose from the bag being carried by a lumber- 
ing cart which wandered over half the country, dropping 
its cargo by the way at all the different country ;houses in 
the valley of the Raab, and ending its long journey with 
ours. But after a little time we fell into such an agreeable 
routine of domestic habits, that so far from regretting the 
tardiness of these communications with the external world, 
we came to consider even this bi-weekly post, as Jona- 
than would call it, rather a teazing interruption. We 
often felt ourselves, indeed, gradually relapsing into a 
state of indifference as to the affairs of the busy world 
lying beyond the limits of our " dreary solitude," a dis- 
paraging epithet whiQh was applied to Hainfeld — not by 
us — but by its mistress herself, to whose broken heart 
and blasted hopes it had so long proved a desolate and 
lonely abode. To us it was quite the contrary ; for we 
could truly say, that during no part of our lives had we 
ever felt less alone, or more completely contented and 
happy, that when our whole society became comprised in 
the person of our matchless Countess ! 

One evening when I was sitting with her ladyship, the 
letter bag came in, a.nd was as usual delivered[, into her 
hands. Of the four or five packets which it contained 
for herself, she reserved onl}^ one for immediate perusal, 
putting the other less fortunate despatches amongst her 
innumerable books and papers on her left, where, in all 
probability, they lay many days, or it may have been 
many weeks, unopened. 

" But this letter,^' said she, " will interest both you 
and me, as it is from Edinburgh — I pray you to read it 
to me." 

I took it accordingly, and broke the seal, but for my 
life I could not make out a single line, though it was evi- 
dently written in a plain hand. I opened the window 
shutter to its full width ; but still could not see to read. 
I then discovered that although there was still a bright 
glow in the western sky, the pure daylight had been ex- 
changed for that uncertain twilight, which to some optics 
is almost tantamount to no light at all. I had more than 



96 ^ THE DAY AT HAlNFELt). 

once before begun to fear that I had reached the age when 
this description of weakness first becomes sensible. I 
said so to the Countess, and begged her leave to ring for 
,the lamp. "Yes! yes!^^ cried she, laughing heartily, but 
begging pardon for doing so — " Do ring for the lights. I 
don't wonder to hear you complain of this twilight blind- 
ness — you have it by inheritance ; and, for that matter," 
added the old lady, laughing still more, " I ought to have 
it by connexion. 

" You know," she continued, " or perhaps, you do not 
know, that my brother-in-law, Dugald Stewart, had pot 
the faculty of distinguishing colours at any time; and, 
like your own father Sir James, he absolutely lost his 
sight when this sort of twilight set in. It is a most 
curious fact," she went on to say, " that Dugald Stewart 
could not see any difference even between colours so 
strongly contrasted as the ripe mulberry fruit and the leaf 
of that tree. Yet the practical inconvenience of this sin- 
gular defect in the retina, if such it were, was'^nothing in 
comparison to what he suffered from becoming blind 
when the day was nearly at a close. 

"I was laughing just now," said the Countess, warm- 
ing with ber topic, as she always did when any thing car- 
ried her thoughts back to Ediiiburgh, w^hich was fifty 
times a week — " I was laughing at the recollection of a 
funny scene I had with your father and Mr. Stewart at 
least half a century ago. We had all been drinking tea 
with my excellent friend the Reverend Mr. Allison, 
who had then a house in Bruntsfield Links. My two 
companions, the moment thy came into the open air, re- 
commenced a metaphysical discussion the party had been 
engaged in, and which, from the popular turn which the 
graceful genius of Mr. Allison gave to the most profound 
disquisitions, I had been able, in some degree, to under- 
stand ; at all events, to take great interest in. 

" But when your father and Mr. Stewart found them- 
selves alone — for they seemed to consider a young lady 
as nobody — they dived much deeper into the subject than 
I could well follow; and to the one or two questions I 
ventured to put, in search of explanation, the philosophers 



THE DAY AT HAINPELD. 97 

made scarcely any answer, but trudged on over the little 
grassy knolls of the Links, taking no more account of me 
than if I had not been present. 

" As I well knew my companions to be two of the 
very kindest and' best bred men in the world, and that 
they were merely absorbed in their darling topics, I paced 
after them in respectful patience, thinking of something 
else, and admiring as the sun went down, the last touch 
of bright -light on the top of Arthur's Seat, and the flag- 
staff and battlements of the old castle. 

" Presently Mr. Stewart, slackening his pace, drew to 
my side, and remarked that the golf players had quite 
destroyed the Links for a lady's walking, and that unless 
I took his arm I might put my foot into one of the holes 
used in the aforesaid game. As I found none of the incon- 
venience to which he referred, and as we had passed most 
of the rough ground, I begged him not to disturb his phi- 
losophical tete-a-tete on my account. But he continued 
to press me to take his arm. I knew well enough what 
was the Professor's motive, for I had long been aware of 
his peculiar optical weakness, and I saw he could scarcely 
walk a step without setting his foot on a stone, or into a 
hole ; but I was willing, by declining his twilight civili- 
ties, to punish his broad day neglect. Sir James, who as 
yet saw quite well, had no idea what Mr. Stewart was 
manoeuvring about, and even tried all he could, being 
deeply interested in the discussion, to detach the blind 
lecturer's attention from me to himself. Mr, Stewart, 
however, in his fears of a sprained ankle, seemed quite to 
forget his moral philosophy, much to your father's sur- 
prise. 

" In about five minutes afterwards, however, I was 
much amused when Sir James also offered me his arm, 
expressed in like manmer a wonderful anxiety about my 
safety and comfort, and, as Mr. Stewart had done before 
him, insisted upon encumbering me with help of which I 
stood in no sort of need. It became truly a task of some 
difficulty to lead these two gentlemen, for as neither of 
them could see an inch before him, I was obliged to act 
as a guide to both. They, on the other hand, as soon as 

9* 



08 THE DAY AT HAINFELD. 

they had regained their confidence, through the agency 
of my pilotage, forgot their sudden fit of gallantry, and 
once more recommenced their unintelligible disquisitions 
across my very nose, and without once seeming to recol- 
lect that such an individual as their female protector was 
in existence !" 

As one story is sure to beget another, this adventure 
with the Edinburgh philosophers reminded me at the mo- 
ment of a very different scene with one of them; and 
as it amused the Countess, I may perhaps be allowed to 
introduce it here. 

Long after the period described, when my father, no 
longer a student at the College and Dugald Stewart's pupil, 
was at the head of a numerous family, he set out in a fine 
afternoon to walk with one of his little boys. It was his 
wont, in every thing, great or small, to go straight to his 
object, and sometimes without duly considering the labour 
it was to cost, either to himself or his less robust com- 
panions. On the occasion I speak of, being anxious to in- 
duct his progeny to some of those mysteries of geology 
which delighted his own imagination, and which he took 
it for granted the boy would relish as much as himself, he 
proceeded to the top of Corstorphine, a well-known basal- 
tic hill near Edinburgh. The sun set as usual, but as my 
father's enthusiasm never set, away he went, lugging the 
schoolboy after him, who indeed enjoyed the ramble as 
much as his papa, who was his most agreeable and con- 
stant companion. 

The point was made out to the satisfaction of both par- 
ties; the hill was gained, and the geologist having exa- 
mined the spot about which he was curious, set about 
teaching the young idea of his son how to shoot into past 
ages. For the rest, both were pleased to have had what 
they called a scamper over the hills. 

On turning back, however, it was soon apparent that 
they had made respectively two very false calculations — 
my father of the duration of the daylight, and my little 
brother of the strength of his legs. Before they were 
half-way down the hill, my father, in the twilight, entirely 
lost his sight, and though the boy could see well enough, 



THE WORSER. 99 

and knew the way perfectly, he was quite knocked up, 
and could not walk a step! 

In this dilemma, my father, whose ingenuity and re- 
sources were not confined to scientific pursuits, readily 
devised an escape. Being a strong man, and the boy be- 
ing light, he perched the urchin on his shoulders, and 
thus, while one furnished legs, the other provided eyes, 
and they regained their home almost as soon, and much 
more merrily, than if they had both been on foot! 



CHAPTER X. 



THE WORSER. 



One day when I entered the Countess's room, I ob- 
served that she had been writing; but on my sitting down 
by her bedside, she sent away the apparatus, retaining 
only one sheet of paper, which she held up, and said, — 

"You have written your life; here is mine," and she 
put into my hands 4;he following copy of verses, by whom 
written she would not tell me. Probably they are by 
herself, for they are certainly exactly such as suited her 
cast of thought. I may here repeat, that in spite of all her 
misfortunes, and the pains she took to cherish her grief, 
she was invariably cheerful, and never let fall a hasty or 
querulous word. 

MY LIFE. 

My life is like the summer rose^ 
That opens to the morning- sky; 
But ere the shades of evening close, 
Is scattered on the ground to die. 
But on that rose's humble bed, 
The sweetest dews of night are shed, 
As if Heav'n wept such waste to see. 
But none shall weep a tear for me ! 



100 THE WORSER. 

My life is like the autumnal leaf, 

That trembles in the moon's pale ray, 
Its hold is frail — its date is brief — 
Restless, arid soon to pass away. 
Yet ere that leaf shall fall or fade, 
The parent tree shall mourn its shade, 
The winds bewail the leafless tree, , 
But none shall breathe a sigh for me ! 

■s 

My life is like the print that feet 

Have left on Zara's desert strand ; 
Soon as the rising tide shall beat, 

The track shall vanish from the sand. 
~ Yet, as if grieving to efface 
All vestige of the human race, 
On that lone shore loud mourns the sea, 
But none shall e'er lament for me ! 

As the Countess had been relating to me the day before, 
some passages of her melancholy history, and pointing 
out, in very touching terms, the entire desolation of her 
life, and the utter ruin of all her fondest hopes, I could 
not help admitting, when she asked me what I thought oL, 
the above lines, that they painted her situation but too 
truly: "Though," I added, "they surely do injustice to 
the many attached friends you still possess." 

" You are very good," she said, sighing and shaking 
her head; but instantly continued, with a smile — "I should 
be wicked to complain, for although my path has been a 
thorny one, and all those I loved and cherished most have 
been torn from me, there has been no dishonour to them 
nor to me; and the past is unclouded by any remorse, or 
any thing not in itself pleasing, however melancholy to 
look back upon. You remember," she went on to say, in 
her usual animated style, — " You remember the old story 
of the Worser? For my own part, I often think, with 
great gratitude to Providence, how much worse off I 
might have been, though I have successively lost all the 
friends I most loved in the world, and am here laid on 
my dying-bed — for die, and that shortly, I believe and 
hope I shall — a broken-hearted, helpless, useless old crip- 
ple." 

I stammered out some commonplaces about hoping that 



Tl^HE WOKSEIl. lOl 

she was still to see many useful and happy days — happy 
at all events to her friends. She took no notice of these 
remarks, hut continued, in a tone rather morelnelancholy 
than she had used hefore I interruj)ted her, in the follow- 
ing words: — 

" I take rather an interest in hearing stories of persons 
who are still worse off than myself; and you, too, may 
possihly he interested in the following narrative, for the 
truth of which I can vouch: — 

"A lady and gentleman several years ago were living 
at the Hague; they had heen for some time married, and 
were justly reckoned amongst the happiest of the happy. 
Particular business called the husband away. Shortly af- 
terwards the wife received a letter by express, stating that 
her husband was dangerously ill; and that she must use 
the utmost despatch if she hoped to see him alive. No 
time was lost, but on approaching the inn she was met by 
a funeral, and learned, to her unspeakable horror, that the 
hearse before her contained the dead body of her hus- 
band! She fainted in the streets; but when the funeral 
had passed on, the people were at a loss what to do with 
her, not knowing who or what she was, nor even her con- 
nexion witii the gentleman who had died; for when she 
recovered from the ftiinting fit, her reason had Hod. A 
benevolent lady, however, who witnessed the whole scene 
from her window, ran down into the street, and desired 
that the unfortunate woman should be carried to her own 
room. 

" For some weeks her mind continued unsettled, and 
she seemed unconscious of every thing, except that some 
dreadful calamity had happened. At length her senses 
returned, and with them a full comprehension of her loss. 
Her grief became outragedus and uncontrolled, and she 
constantly exclaimed, * I am the most wretched, the most 
unfortunate of women — surely never, never was there any 
one put to such a trial.' For a little while her unknown 
but kind friend did not attempt to stem these bursts of 
grief, but at last she said to her, mildly, though firmly — 
* Your lot is hard, but you are not the most unfortunate of 
mortals. Listen to my story. I, too, was a happy, happy 



102 THE WORSEH. 



^ 



wife. My husband and 1 had passed upwards of twenty 
years in the uninterrupted enjoyment of life, in compa- 
nionship with our two children, a son and a daughter, who 
were in every respect what we could desire. To our infi- 
nite horror and amazement, we discovered that a villain in 
our own establishment, a man in whom we had trusted, 
had, by a Series of diabolical arts, seduced the virtue of 
our poor girl! He fled from our vengeance, and his 
wretched ruined victim died shortly afterwards in child- 
bed. Meanwhile her brother, who was of a delicate frame, 
and of a sensitive temperament, was so wrought upon by 
sorrow and humiliation, that he speedily fell into a de- 
cline, and we saw before us another inevitable source of 
grief. _ 

" ^ To avert the blow, however, as long as possible, a 
journey to the south of Europe was recommended, and 
the grateful air of a more genial climate seemed to revive 
the drooping spirits of our son. One day he entered a 
coffee-house, and had scarcely sat down before he beheld 
the destroyer of his sister placed before him. Stupified, 
and uncertain what to do, he remained silent, while the 
other at ones broke into taunts, allusions, and reproaches. 
This was too much for human nature to stand, and our 
poor boy, snatching up a knife, which unfortunately lay 
within his reach, plunged it into the heart of the monster 
who had ruined the peace of a whole family. 

" ^ Of course he was instantly secured. The trial fol- 
lowed, and in spite of all the extenuating circumstances 
which were urged, he was condemned, and, dreadful to 
relate, executed! My husband returned to me from the 
horrid scene apparently calm and unmoved. We felt it 
our duty to support one another under these terrible dis- 
pensations, sent upon us, no doubt, for our good, by the 
wisdom of a Power whose ways are inscrutable. The 
next day we had agreed to take a drive together; but after 
my husband had handed me into the carriage, he said he 
had forgot something, for which he must return to his 
room. I waited for five or six minutes, and then becom- 
ing alarmed, I ran up stairs, and found that he had put a 
period to his existence! 



THE WORSER. 103 

" ' Judge now, therefore, my dear madam, whether 
there may not be more unfortunate women in the world 
than you are/ '' 

The Countess being in the vein for relating anecdotes — 
as, indeed, she almost always was when there happened 
to be no particular subject under discussion — said, after a 
short pause, — 

" You think that rather a painful tale. I fear it was but 
too true. I'll tell you another, however, which is not so 
gloomy, the particulars of which I have repeatedly heard 
from friends on whom I can perfectly rely. It would be 
difficult, I suspect, to invent circumstances so little in the 
ordinary way of life; but I think I can safely assure you 
that all I am going to tell you took place. 

" One summer evening, in a pretty little village on the 
pleasant banks of the Tweed, a gentle tap was hoard at 
the door of the schoolmaster's house, which was the first 
of a line of nCw buildings at the end of the ' Toon,' as the 
natives called it. The schoolmaster, who was quite a 
young man, and just established in his laborious office, 
opened the door himself, and was rather surprised to see 
an elderly woman holding in her hand a very pretty per- 
son, at whose breast was an infant. 

" The old woman begged admittance for her young 
friend, stating that she was quite exhausted, and would 
presently expire of fatigue if not assisted. The schoolmas- 
ter of course desired them to enter, and taking the child in 
one arm, gave the other to the young woman, who fainted 
as he placed her on a chair. The schoolmaster's mother, 
an old lady who managed the cottage establishment for 
him, was somewhat surprised to find such a party installed 
in the house when she returned from visiting a neighbour. 
But being of the same kindly disposition as her son, she 
gave the wearied strangers a hearty welcome; and al- 
though she said she could not give them such good ac- 
commodation as they would have found at the inn farther 
up the street, she and her son would do the best they coUld 
for them. 

" Next morning a curious dilemma arose. The elderly 
woman had silently taken her departure in the night; and 



104 THE WORSEH. 

as it soon appeared that the young person who with her 
child had accompanied her, was both deaf and dumb, no 
direct means of ascertaining who and what they were 
presented themselves. The young woman, however, was 
so pleasing in her manners, so pretty withal, and both she 
and the child so well dressed, that the schoolmaster and 
his mother felt an involuntary respect for their mysterious 
guests, and very soon took such an interest in them, that 
all tlioughts of giving them any hint to retire were out of 
the question. 

" The schoolmaster, as part of his business, had learned 
the art of speaking on his fingers; and as his mother soon 
acquired it also, there occurred no difficulty in communi- 
cating with the young woman. The first request of the 
stranger was, that she might be asked no questions as to 
her history; the second was, that she might be permitted 
to remain where accident had placed her. And as she 
made this request, she produced a purse, containing, as 
she explained, an ample sum to discharge her board and 
lodging for herself and the child for a year. 

" In a private consultation held between the schoolmas- 
ter and his mother on this proposal, the prudent old lady 
strongly objected to such an arrangement, on the plea of 
its indelicacy, and the hazard in which it might place the 
respectability of the village school, when it was known 
that a person of such questionable history had become the 
schoolmaster's guest. 

" The young man, on the other hand, warmly advocated 
the cause of the forlorn wanderer — rendered doubly help- 
less in consequence of her unfortunate want of speech and 
hearing. As to the indelicacy, he said that was an idle 
notion, as his mother's presence would effectually main- 
tain all the proprieties. The truth was, however, that the 
schoolmaster, who was a man of birth considerably above 
his present station, and who had received a first-rate edu- 
cation, was greatly struck with the beauty of the stranger. 
Moreover, though he did not confess it, even to himself, 
he had begun to entertain vague hopes that, in process of 
time, the mystery might be cleared up. Then, thought 
he, all the proprieties upon which his mother dwelt 



THE WORSER. 105 

might be satisfied in a manner which he scarcely ventured 
to think of. 

" Month after month passed in this way. The stranger 
became every day more and more amiable, and the mo- 
ther saw, with a feeling of mixed alarm and satisfaction, 
that while the young people were becoming daily more 
intimate and attached, the school was more and more ne- 
glected, till at length the boys had it all to themselves. Itj 
was soon admitted by all parties that this could not be al- 
lowed to go on long; and after one more fruitless attempt 
to gain from the young woman some notion what she 
was, or who she was, or where she came from (an attempt 
which she declared, if repeated, must drive her for ever 
from them,) it was agreed that a marriage should take 
place. 

"Married they were accordingly, and the thousand and 
one gossips of the village silenced for the time. The 
school, which had languished in proportion as the court- 
ship of the preceptor had flourished, now revived ; and 
what was very important and satisfactory to the neighbour- 
hood, a female department was added. In this the school- 
master's wife taught writing, cyphering, and sewing — her 
usefulness being necessarily limited by her want of the 
senses of heanng and speech. 

" Her success, however, was astonishing, and the school 
gained great celebrity in consequence. The discipline she 
maintained was perfect, for it received the most exact obe- 
dience, while it gained for her the regard as well as the 
respect of her pupils. The shrewd ones amongst the young 
folks used often to assert, when alone, that the mistress 
must only be pretending to be deaf, as she appeared to dis- 
cover, with a kind of intuitive accuracy, all that they said 
near her. But the numberless experiments which they 
made to entrap her only tended to establish that it really 
was no pretence. Finally, all suspicion on their part, as 
well as on the husband's, if indeed any had ever existed, 
gradually died away. 

" In the mean time, she became the mother of seven 
children, besides the girl who had been with her at the 
time of her first appearance, and who always called her 

10 



106 THE WORSER. 

mamma, and was treated as a daughter by her. I should 
mention that the old woman, who had accompanied her 
on her arrival, paid her and her children a visit of several 
days once a-year, and on these occasions she always brought 
with her a purse of money similar to that which the young 
woman had produced on the morning after she was received 
by the schoolmaster. 

" One or two attempts to win from the old lady some 
trace of the young person's mysterious history were met 
by such earnest entreaties not to inquire into the matter, 
and threatenings of such an alarming nature, that after the 
second year no further questions were put to her, and every 
thing fell, into a regular, succe.ssful, and happy train. No 
persons could be more attached, no family more flourish- 
ing, and no business more satisfactory than the joint 
school. 

"The gentry of the neighbourhood were naturally much 
interested in this strange story, and still more interested 
in the heroine of it, whose manners, as I have already men- 
tioned, were those of a much higher rank in life. But 
they tried in vain to in^duce her to visit them, and she 
stuck resolutely to her school and- cottage duties. 

" On the fourteenth anniversary of her arrival, when the 
old woman made her periodical appearance with her purse 
of gold, the girl who was called, and who probably was, 
her eldest daughter, chanced to pass unobserved through 
a room in which thist)ld person and her mother were. To 
her astonishment, and even horror, she heard her mother 
speak. Greatly alarmed and confused, she ran to her 
father, as she always called the schoolmaster, and com- 
municated the wonderful news to him. He desired the 
girl to tell no one else, and said nothing himself till the 
night came, and every one had retired to bed. 

" He then told his wife of the discovery which had been 
made, and entreated her to bless him with the sound of her 
voice. 

"'You are very wrong,' she said, 'and you will deeply 
rue this breach of our solemn contract. You have heard 
me speak once — you shall never hear me speak again !' 



THE WORSER. 107 

« He tried every art — he prayed — he wept— rbut all in 
vain — till at length, quite exhausted, he fell asleep. 

" In the morning his wife was no longer by his side. 
He rose in alarm : the house was searched — ail the grounds 
— the desolate school — she was no where to be found, and 
the only thing like a trace was the uncertain report of a 
peasant who had seen two females running out of the vil- 
lage at midnight. 

'^ This afforded no clue, however, and the poor man was 
left in despair. As his iieart was wellnigh broken, his 
business no fonger prospered. The girls' school, after a 
few vain attempts at a substitute for the spirit that had fled, 
was given up. The other branch fell into neglect, and the 
wdiole fortunes of the poor man seemed crushed under the 
weight of this misfortune. 

" His only consolation was in his family ; but this en- 
dured not long, for before the year was out, first one and 
then another fell sick, till, just at the period when the old 
woman was wont to make her appearance, every member 
of the young family was laid up with measles or some 
such complaint, several of them being at the point of death. 
The utmost anxiety was of course felt to know whether 
the usual visit would be paid, and great was the joy of all 
when the old woman appeared. As she entered the door, 
she held up her bag of money, not knowing the condition 
of the children. 

" ^ Of what use is your base gold ?' exclaimed the wretch- 
ed father. ' Look at this sight — -look at these motherless, 
deserted, dying children !' 

" The old woman, struck with horror, threw down the 
money, and fled. In less than a week she returned, lead- 
ing back the mysterious deserter, whose presence and at- 
tentions soon restored all the party, young and old, to 
health and happiness. 

"But what excited unbounded wonder in the minds of 
her family, and every one else, was the circumstance of 
her now speaking and hearing perfectly, and of her no 
longer refusing to go into society. 

" The husband, it may be well imagined, after the severe 
lesson he had received, never again approached the niys- 



108 THE BORE. 

terious subject with his wife ; and as no other person ven- 
tured to take such a liberty with her, the secret was never 
even guessed at. The nearest approach to it — indeed, the 
only faint glimmer of light which was ever shed upon it — 
arose from the circumstance of her accent being slightly 
Irish ; whence it was inferred that she may have belonged 
to some distinguished family in that country. 

*^ After this period — strange to say — the old woman 
never came back ; and as the lady herself — for such all who 
knew her admitted she must have been^ — was carried off 
by a sudden illness, some years afterwards, the seal of per- 
manent mystery has been set upon this singular adven- 
ture." 

One may perceive in this wild tale not a little of what is 
called the German fancy. It is curious, indeed, to remark, 
that such had been the effect of her long familiarity with 
the writings of that imaginative country, that the Countess 
delighted in such involved and mysterious stories, and, as 
it were, in spite of her own more sober judgment, gave 
them credence. She assured us, accordingly, that the 
above circumstances were well authenticated, — though, it 
must be confessed, they look much more like what might 
have occurred on the banks of the " dark rolling Danube'^ 
or the Elbe, than by the side of the merry Tweed, albeitj 
in times past, not unacquainted with romantic incidents. 



CHAPTER XI. 



THE BORE. 



Although the even tenour of our existence at Hain- 
feld,the most hospitable of all castles, afforded small mat- 
ter for narration, there occurred every now and then in- 
cidents, which, though sufficiently insignificant when 
compared to the great events of life, possessed conside- 
rable importance in our eyes by their effect on our comforts 



THE SORE. 109 

at the time. A musquito is a very little animal, but where 
is the philosopher whose patience might not be buzzed or 
stung out of him by one of these wretches attacking him 
during the whole night ? Irir like manner, there may be 
found tormenting little animals of the human species, 
wholly insignificant as regards their usefulness, but omni- 
potent in their powers of tormenting others. Who is 
there that is not acquainted with a certain number of 
Bores, to meet any one of whom at a party, or in the 
streets, for five minutes, is a punishment only tolerable, 
because we know the misery is transient ? But think of 
the intense agony of having to live in the same country- 
house with a finished Bore ! In town one may escape, or 
other persons may be got together to smother the mon- 
ster; but in the cOuntry, where there is no escape, and 
where it is difficult or impossible to dilute the evil by ga- 
thering together persons of a different stamp, the calamity 
becomes almost too great for endurance. 

We were once exposed to the smarting of this griev- 
ance at Hainfeld, for so long a time, that at last (as in the 
parallel case of the musquito) we wrought ourselves into 
a fever of impatience and distress, unworthy, it must be 
admitted, of rational persons under such circumstances; 
but the misery was not the less real on that account. 

Our friendly hostess, in speaking of the various persons 
who were likely to come to the castle during the winter, 
with or without invitation, had frequently mentioned to 
us the name of a lady with whom she had at one time 
been rather intimate, but whose acquaintance, from a va- 
riety of circumstances, had become no longer agreeable. 
" I have done every thing I can,^' said the Countess, "to 
cut her, and prevent her from coming to Hainfeld, but I 
have not been able to accomplish my purpose; and as the 
customs of the country permit any one who pleases to 
enter and abide in your house, it is very difficult, with a 
person who will not take a hint, to rid oneself of such a 
guest., 

" I only hope," continued the old lady, getting anima- 
ted with her topic, " I only hope to goodness that she will 
not come upon us during your stay, for I fear you would 
never agree. It is possible/' she added, " that you folks 

10* 



IIQ THE BORE. 

who have seen all parts of the world, and love to examine 
curious specimens of humanity, may be interested by this 
sample, but I doubt it; for, although she is very well in- 
formed and learned in her way, she generally contrives 
somehow, in spite of very great efforts to please, to render 
herself universally unpopular with all classes, low as well 
as high; and you will laugh when I tell you of a curious 
result of this extensive feeling against my quondam friend. 

" One of the plagues of my unfortunate situation," con- 
tinued our hostess, " is the difficulty I find in managing 
\he crowd of servants I am obliged to maintain in my cas- 
tle. It is always bad enough when there is not a master 
in such an establishment; but it is still worse when the 
mistress is bed-ridden, and from not being able to see into 
matters with her own eyes, must take the report of others. 
In shortj you will easily conceive that I have no small 
work to keep things smooth amongst my domestics; and 
for some years, indeed ever since 1 have been laid up en- 
tirely, half my time and more than half my temper, have 
been spent in settling their foolish quarrels; so that, until 
you came, I have scarcely known any peace on this ac- 
count, excepting only," added the Countess, laughing, 
^^when this obliging friend of mine came to pay me a 
visit. For, you must understand, that she is so cordially 
hated by all the servants, that whatever hostilities may be 
waging amongst them, or whatever real or imaginary 
sources of discontent may be stirring their tempers, and 
sending them to spout their angry recriminations to me, 
all is forgotten the moment this doughty personage ar- 
rives! A treaty of cordial alliance, offensive and defen- 
sive, on the ground of common ill will, is instantly patched 
up among them, and for the time, I hear no more of them 
and their absurd bickerings. 

" It IS true," said the old lady, with a shake of her head, 
and a tone of more bitterness than we had previously re- 
marked in her, " that as a set off for this repose below 
stairs, I am liable to be tormented, not with their com- 
plaints of one another, but with my unhappy guest's com- 
plaints of them. When irritated by her statements of 
their negligence or impertinence, I summon my people to 
my bedside, they fully admit the facts as set forth, and 



THE BORIK 111 

justify their conduct by asserting the utter impossibility of 
living on any tolerable terms with the individual in ques- 
tion/' 

Just before this conversation, we had been discussing 
the point of our stay at the castle, and the Countess had 
-been urging us to give up what she called our absurd and 
cruel intention of going away on the first of December, 
and to make up our minds to remain at all events over the 
new year; but the discussion had been interrupted by some- 
thing. I resumed it by saying that I trusted, if we did 
agree to stay so long, she would manage to keep this sho,- 
dragon away from us. 

" I shall do what I can," she replied, " but I suppose 
you would not wish me to write to say you make it a sti- 
pulation with me, that if you remain, she is not to be ad- 
mitted ?" Whatever we may have thought, we expressed 
ourselves duly shocked at such a proposition, and entreated 
her not to think of taking such a strong step on our ac- 
count. 

" Why," she said, " you need not be so horrified, for I 
should feel little scruple on my own part, as I am already 
obliged to do something of the sort, in the case of a dis- 
tant friend who sometimes visits me, and who makes it a 
condition that this lady shall not only not be invited, but 
that she shall not be permitted to put her foot within the 
doors during his visit!" 

Happy would it have been for us and for all parties, had 
we too made a similar condition — but it seemed scarcely 
within the rules of good breeding to suggest such a thing, 
or even to permit it;, and we passed from the subject, under 
the hope that something would turn up to save us from 
such a visitation. 

While we were yet speaking, a letter came to the 

Countess from the dreaded person herself, and she opened 

u it with fear and trembling. It was to state the lady's re- 

Xgrets that owing to the illness of one of her family, she 

yould not at present have the pleasure of coming to Hain- 

teld, but that she hoped soon to be at liberty to do so. 

" It is all over with us!" cried the Countess. " I know 
the meaning of such a letter as this. She will be here be- 
fore the week is out. I do not really know how to help 



112 THE BORE. 

it. Perhaps," sighed she, " you may like her very well 
after all; for there is not a person alive who makes greater 
efforts to render herself popular; and if she does not always 
succeed, nature is in fault, not the lady. So pray give her 
a fair trial." 

She came accordingly; and surely never was there any 
one who looked the character better, or who, in all pos- 
sible respects, enacted the Bore more truly to the life. 
Her voice, harsh and unmusical to the last degree of di|- 
cord, might be thought melodious in comparison with the 
jarring elements of her conversation; and v/liat made this 
worse, was the unceasing exigence of her curiosity, which 
made her wish to join in all that was passing, and to give 
her opinion unasked upon every topic. She seemed, in- 
deed, to possess an ubiquity the most wonderful; for sit 
where you chose, talk in as low a voice as you might, still 
she would contrive to get at you, and to intrude her stale, 
flat, and unprofitable commonplaces upon you. If you es- 
caped, to have a quiet chat tete-a-tete with the Countess, 
she was by your side. If you returned to the library, 
there she w^as re-established before you. If, in order to' 
avoid talking, you took volume first of a hook, she got 
hold of volume second, and insisted on comparing notes, 
or anticipating your story, in spite of your teeth. If you 
wished to read aloud in a retired window to a single per- 
son, straightway .the Bore dragged a chair into your re- 
treat,- popped herself triumphantly down, and cried out, 
"I'll be your public—read on!" 

Amongst her other accomplishments, this good lady 
was very learned in the tongues, and had taken not a few 
lessons in English. But, Oh, ye gods and goddesses, 
what English she did speak ! No written account can 
convey an adequate idea of sounds so horrible, and yet 
you could see that she prided herself particularly on her 
proficiency. Until we resolutely put a stop to it, she laid 
all and each of us under contributions to improve her 
stock of words. First she tried to elect me to the ho- 
nourable post of teacher; and when I fought shy, she at- 
tacked the ladies of my establishment : but the discourag- 
insc reserve with which her advances were there met 
threw her upon a young officer of the Austrian army, a 



THE BORE. 113 

countryman of ours, who, from not being so much accus- 
tomed to the world and its ways, knew not how to disen- 
tangle himself She made the poor youth listen for hours 
together to what she obligingly called reading English — a 
fact which no one could have dreamed of, had she not in- 
formed him that such was the language she was Burking. 
Then she brought him to correct long foolscap sheets of 
exercises, also in this unfortunate, unknown tongue. ^ 
#Her desire, in short, to show off, and her possible un- 
consciousness that she was giving pain instead of pleasure, 
induced her to follow us into whatever corner of the castle 
we betook ourselves. As to giving hints, or showing by 
our looks and manner that we wished to be alone, it was 
useless. She would not take offence; which invulnerable 
property led a Gratz wag to remark of her, that while some 
people are thin skinned, and others thick skinned, she 
seemed clad with the hide of a rhinoceros. If, on the other 
hand, in a sortof despair mixed with remorse, we tried the 
plan of being remarkably civil, it was instantaneously taken 
such savage advantage of, in the shape of fresh intrusion, 
that we were speedily driven back to our coldness and 
formality. At dinner all conversation was at an end ; for 
if you spoke to your next neighbour in the lowest whis- 
per, though the Bore was seated at the farthest angle of 
the table from you, her quick ear caught up what jou 
-said ; and before your question was well out of your 
mouth, she, and not the person it was addressed to, would 
oblige you with an answer. 

I have already adverted to the kind of omnipresence 
which belonged to this insinuating personage, which 
made all parties in the house complain that she was al- 
ways by their side ; and, accordingly, when at night, and 
driven to desperation, we fled to our rooms, and compared 
notes, every one was ready to swear that she had never 
once intermitted her companionship. Most fortunately, 
we began on the very first day by declining her offers of 
walking with us, and many a weary roundabout it cost 
us to avoid meetings in the woods. 

In process of time the annoyance I have but very 
faintly described became almost unbearable ; and as nearly 
all our pleasure in the visit was at an end, in consequence, 



114 THE BORE. 

we began once more to think seriously of taking our de- 
parture. On the other hand, the good Countess every 
day urged upon us her increasing anxiety that we should 
stay till the spring, or at all events till after the new 5^ear ; 
and, indeed, we felt ourselves so very comfortably lodged, 
with the sole exception of being bored through and through 
like an old target, that we had the greatest reluctance to 
break up our snug winter quarters, in order to seek a very 
questionable enjoyment at Vienna. # 

One day when the Countess was pressing us hard upon 
this point, and claiming our sympathy — as well she might 
- — on the score of her gradually declining health, and the 
vast addition our party made to her comforts, I said to 
her, playfully, that if she would only rid the house of a 
certain person, our minds might easily be made up to re- 
main some time longer. 

" That is a motive, indeed," quoth the old lady, sigh- 
ing ; " and difficult as the exploit may prove, I trust we 
shall be able to accomplish the task of dislodging her. 
But," continued the Countess, " she is like a bur. She 
comes into the house, and sticks, and sticks, and pricks 
every one, but cannot be got rid of. I have already given 
her a dozen hints, but all in vain." 

In fact, we found that the poor mistress of the house 
had been long pondering in her mind how to terminate 
the visit of her self-invited and most unwelcome guest; 
more especially as she saw that it was next to impossi- 
ble that we could or would submit for any length of time 
to this daily increasing annoyance, which alternately 
made us laugh and almost cry with vexation. This was 
too hot to last long, as Nelson said of Trafalgar; and it 
became evident 4n the course of a fortnight, that one or 
the other party must presently abandon the position. 

While matters were in this feverish state, it happened, 
partly by accident and partly by design of the Countess, 
that a crowd of company came to the castle. The bustle 
proved however too much for the old lady's shattered 
nerves ; since each person who in turn visited her, though 
carefully schooled on the subject, presently forgot that 
although he was not an invalid, he was talking to one ; 
accordingly, some talked too loud, others too quick, and 



THE BORE. 115 

all, too much ; so that the exhausted Countess was almost 
worn out. 

This had the good effect of bringing the campaign, as 
we called it, against the Bore, to a crisis. The mistress of 
the house declared to several of her friends, in confidence, 
but with her wonted decision of manner, which left no 
doubt of her determination, that she could not possibly, in 
her present weak and gradually-declining state of health, 
eiatertain more company in the castle than her own coun- 
tryfolks, meaning our party ; and that, therefore, she must 
entreat them to forgive her for requesting them to cut 
short their visit for the present. Every member of the 
party so appealed to but one not onl^y understood this, 
and were pleased with the good old lady's frankness, but 
promised to do their best to aid and assist in freeing her 
likewise of the person who, they saw, fretted her life and 
soul out. 

Accordingly, next day, all but she prepared to return 
home, or to'proceed on other visits. The Countess was 
distracted, and we were in despair ; and it now really 
seemed as if nothing short of the celebrated Irish hint 
was likely to have any effect. But it was suggested that 
even the strongish measure of throwing the guest out of 
the window would have no effect in this particular case, 
for that she would speedily re-enter the house, thanking 
you for the air and exercise which the fall and flight had 
afforded her ! 

At last, and just before the company dispersed, the 
Countess, who, though bedrid, possessed much energy of 
character, resolved to bring matters to a point. In this 
view she commissioned two of her other and more rea- 
sonable guests, to undertake the delicate task of fairly 
telling the Bore that she must depart. One of these com- 
missioners was a lady, and she managed her part very 
well; but the other, though one of the ablest men I ever 
met with in any country, nearly bungled all, and defeated, 
by his bad diplomacy, the well laid schemes of his col- 
league. 

In the course of the evening he took occasion, as if quite 
carelessly, to ask the lady whom we were all sighing and 
dying to get rid of, how long she thought of remaining 



116 THE BORE. 

at Hainfeld, now the Countess was getting feebler, and 
could not entertain so much company as formerly? 

"Oh V cried she briskly, " I shall remain here as long 
as the Halls do." The indiscreet negotiator having thus 
given the enemy a fixed point to fight from, was effectually 
baffled in all his subsequent reasonings about the Countess's 
delicate state of health — her wish to be quiet — her anxiety 
to hear only her own native language spoken this winter. 
All this fell flat and profitless on the dull ear thg^t was 
determined not to be charmed. 

The female commissioner took a wiser and more 
straightforward course. She represented to the lady in 
so many words, that the Countess, who was a most deter- 
mined person, and not to be trifled with, had signified 
her wish to be left alone, or with only her own country 
people about her. The able negotiator softened this com- 
munication by representing, that as the request was general 
ta all the guests in the castle, there could be nothing 
personally offensive intended ; and then seeing^ that she 
had made some impression, she followed up the attack by 
an act of generosity and self-sacrifice worthy of the best 
times of the martyrs. 

" Don't distress yourself," said this most excellent and 
disinterested person, " as to where you shall go from 
hence — come to my castle over the hills, and there we 
shall be happy that you stay as long as suits your conve- 
nience." 

There was no standing all this, and presently we had 
the satisfaction of hearing that the enemy had been brought 
to terms, and had agreed to evacuate the castle. Our 
joy, indeed, was unbounded ; but the old Countess shook 
her head and remarked, that we must not holla till out of 
the wood. 

Next morning the party broke up. Some went south, 
some west, some east, but, to our sorrow and horror, none 
weat north — the only point of the compass we cared 
about. And when the coast was clear of the others, and 
the sound of the carriage-wheels, and tramping horses, and 
bustling domestics, no longer heard, we had the mortifi- 
cation to discover that, to all appearance, our evil genius 
— our bur — our Bore — had not now — and probably never 



THE BORE. 117 

had had — any serious intention of moving ! She had been 
offered the Countess's carriage, but refused it, saying that 
she meant to write home for her own ; but when the 
letters for the post bag came to be collected, there appeared 
no letter in that direction. Thus, the lady's determination 
to hold on for the winter, became to us more fearfully 
apparent than ever ! 

The Countess, however, was not of a temperament to 
be easily thwarted in what she had undertaken ; and seeing 
how matters stood, she begged to have an interview. 
"The post," said she, "is such a roundabout and uncertain 
method of communication in this slow-moving country^ 
that I have thought it would be more satisfactory to you, 
as it certainly will be to me, to arrange this matter by 
sending an express. So I have ordered a man and horse 
to be got ready to carry your letter, and bring back the 
answer." 

It was impossible to resist such a home-thrust as this. 
The letter was written, the messenger despatched, and the 
horse trotted out of the court of the castle as if even the 
very cattle participated in the general feeling which 
agitated the household. 

Next day brought the answer ; and, with it in her hand, 
the unwelcome guest proceeded to the Countess's bedside 
to make a last and desperate stand ; and, had not the old 
lady been a very Wellington or Metternich in petticoats, 
she must have been discomfited. 

The letter was forthwith read, paragraph by paragraph. 
It began by a string of compliments and praises of the 
Countess's liberality, generosity, and above all — hospi- 
tality. The reader paused, but as the listener said nothing, 
she went on. 

" You have spoken," said the letter, " of Sunday for 
your return. Now, unless it be absolutely necessary, no 
one, you know, should travel on a Sunday." 

The reader again paused'; the Countess smiled, but was 
silent. 

"In the next place,'' pursued the epistle, "the chimney 
of your room smokes so abominably, that you cannot 
occupy your apartment till the masons who are at work 

11 



118 THE BORE. 

on it shall have finished ; and you really must not think 
of coming at this season to a cold room/' 

The Countess still took no notice. 

"Finally," said the writer, " you cannot possibly have 
the carriage, as it has been sent away, and will not be 
back for some days; and I fear you cannot well come 
home in any other, as the chaise seat, in which your things_ 
are, will not fit, and it, must not be left/' 

"Is that all ?'' said the Countess. 

"It is all," replied the lady ; "and now what is to be 
done? — what can I do? 

"In the first place," said the Countess, laughing, "your 
friends know, and you know, and all the German world 
know, that so far from Sunday being kept holy, as ^-espects 
travelling, it-is universally selected as the fittest day in 
the whole week for that purpose. But," added she, 
"not to shock your conscience, you shall name your own 
day. 

" In the next place, you lately told me that you always 
had the choice of several other rooms, and as there appears 
to be nothing the matter with their chimneys, you need 
not b& under any alarm, I think, on that score. 

" As to the third and last difficulty, I do grant that it 
is serious, but I shall send for the coachman, and if it 
appears that your box cannot be carried with perfect 
safety and convenience, of course you will have to wait 
for your own carriage as suggested in the letter. But as 
I apprehend there will be no difficulty in taking the box, 
I shall be obliged to you, in order to save yourself and me 
all further anxiety, if you will name the day most suitable 
to yourseK" 

Had our fellow-guest's hide been as strong as the armour 
of Achilles, it must have been pierced by the sharpness 
of this reply. With a sigh she hauled down her colours, 
and said, — 

" Well, then, I'll take advantage of your ladyship's 
obliging offer of the carriage on next Sunday morning." 

I shall not attempt to paint the joy which reigned in 
the castle as the news spread rapidly from the library to 
the laundry, a joy which, however, was suddenly inter- 



QUACKERY ABSOLUTISM. 119 

rupted by an accident which threatened to defeat the whole 
object of the campaign. 

It appeared that our friend, when reading in her own 
room on the evening of the above memorable conference 
with the Countess, had set fire to her head-dress, and 
before she could untie the ribbon, her hand and arm, used 
in extinguishing the flames, were considerably burned. 
Thus we had before us the pleasant prospect of a long 
attendance upon her during her slow recovery. For in 
common decency, if not in common compassion, we must 
have given up our prejudices and assisted a person under 
such circumstances. Now, every one has heard of the 
amiability of a sick monkey ; and a bear with a sore 
head, as an agreeable companion, is proverbial ; but what 
think you of passing a month by the sick-bed of a burnt 
Bore ! 

Thanks to fate, however, and to that blessed remedy 
cotton, the inflammation was kept down, and on Sunday 
morning we had the inexpressible felicity of hearing the 
carriage rattle over the stones ; and feeling that we had 
now fairly got rid of our incubus — our standing night- 
n^are— we sat down to our little domestic church, with 
hearts filled with much thankfulness— but I sadly fear^ 
with any thing but a spirit of Christian charity, or unmixed 
good-will towards men. 



CHAPTER XII. 

• QUACKERY— ABSOLUTISM. 

I THINK I have already mentioned that the Countess had 
an unconquerable aversion to all medicines, or, as she in- 
variably called them— drugs. She had ,sufiered much 
from an illness in Switzerland ; and thence had a notion, 
whether well or ill founded I do not know, that she had 
been improperly treated by the medical men in that 
country ; and she ascribed so much of her subsequent 



120 QUACKERY — ABSOLUTISM. 

miserable sufferings to this cause, real or imaginary, that 
she not only rejected, with equal disgust, every descrip- 
tion of drug, but treated all medical skill with proportion- 
ate scorn. There was no theme, indeed, upon which she 
was more eloquent than the universal quackery of the pro- 
fession of medicine ; but, with a strange kind of inconsis- 
tency, she confined her disrespect to the regularly bred 
professors of the art, while she looked with favour — or at 
least with interest and curiosity — upon those who, without 
any of that caution which true science teaches, boldly as- 
sumed universal infallibility. One might have thought that 
she considered the study of medicine as our ancestors did 
the black art, as something unholy and hurtful to mankind ; 
and, consequently, the deeper any person carried his re- 
searches, the nearer he approached to the source of all 
mischief. 

The Countess, however, was far too clever a person, and 
far too well acquainted with the proceedings of the world, 
to maintain the above argument in direct terms. She was 
aware of the sophistry, as a matter of reasoning ; but 
having suffered, as she -thought, from the misapplication 
of the rules of art, she could not help involving the whole 
profession in the same censure ; and certainly, in practice, 
she showed her sincerity, by never letting a drug of any 
kind pass her lips. 

There lived near her castle, however, a medical man, 
whose pretensions dazzled her imagination greatly, and of 
whom she. wrote to me in one of the letters I have already 
given. It may be remembered, that amongst the induce- 
ments she held out for our visit was the opportunity of 
seeing a man who had wrought all sorts of miracles. 

I had not been long at Hainfeld before the Countess re- 
newed this subject, and she was evidently provoked with 
me because I expressed no sort of curiosity to see the 
wonderful individual, who, if he had not really performed 
all that was ascribed to him, had certainly persuaded the 
public — or at least the great numerical ifiajoritj'' — that he 
had done very great wonders. I said to the Countess that 
I should willingly go to see any professed conjurer play 
his tricks, and that I should cheerfully pay my money for 
being well deceived by sleight of hand, but that I could 



QlfACKERY ABSOLUTISM. 121 

not scourge myself up to feel any interest whatever in a 
man who presumed to work medical miracles ; and that, 
as I considered the whole a piece of arrant quackery, only 
the more mischievous for being extensive, I could not treat 
the matter with any thing short of the utmost contempt. 

I was sorry to see that this strong language nettled the 
old kdy, who it was clear had set her heart upon my 
having an interview with this Dousterswivel ; but I posi- 
tively refused to visit him, or to do or say any thing 
which should imply the smallest faith in the pretensions 
of one who, it was clear to me, lived and fattened upon the 
diseases and death of others, and who had nothing to pro- 
duce in his favour but his own confident assurance, and the 
assertions of ignorant patients, upon whose imaginations 
he had been working with much greater effect than upon 
their bodily frames. 

" At all events," said the -good old Countess, " I hope 
you will not refuse to see him if he calls here ?'^ 

"BleSs me !" I cried, "are you going to consult him?" 

" I shall let him feel my pulse," she said, " and see my 
tongue." 

" But will you swallow his powders ?" 

" I have forsworn all powders and every kind of drug, 
as you know ; but, if I were disposed to take any thing, 
I don't know but what I might try that which has already 
done such' wonderful things. I should be glad," she con- 
tinued, " to be free from this pain, which wears and tears 
me to pieces ; but, to prolong my weary life forms no 
part of my wishes ; and were it otherwise, I feel too deeply 
that I am far beyond the reach of any art, or any medicine. 
If my mind, happily, is not diseased, my heart is broken, 
shivered to pieces— never, never to be repaired in this 
world." 

A short pause followed this melancholy burst, but she 
shed no tears ; the fountain of her grief had long since 
been parched up, during what she called her fiery trials. 
Her grief, indeed*, was too deep-seated, and too constantly 
present to her thoughts, to admit of any relief from its 
expression. Of course, there was nothing to be said, and 
I found it the best way, on such occasions, to go on speak- 
ing in my usual tone and manner, as if nothing had occur- 



122 QUACKERY — ABSOLUTISM. 

red of more than ordinary interest. Before I had time to 
muster up some commonplace observation, by way of 
changing the subject, the Countess brought it back to the 
wonderful doctor, about whom the whole country-side 
was in a craze, by saying that he was to be at Hainfeld on 
that day, at one o'clock ; " and therefore," she said, "I do 
beg of you to defer your walk till you have seen him.'^ 

While she spoke, the door opened, and in he walked. 
I have seldom seen a face of more resolute shrewdness. j 
and now that he had fairly come, I confess I felt some 
curiosity to see to what extent he would carry the joke, 
or farce, or whatever be the term to give to charlatanry on 
such an extensive scale.- As he was full of his subject, and 
quite anxious to speak upon it, no great trouble was re- 
quired to set him agoing ; and as we managed to keep our 
countenances, he may have been encouraged to go on, by 
the belief that he was making an impression. An impres- 
sion he certainly did make ; but, "I guess," it was not 
that which he wished to leave. He first dealt in a very 
startling generalization, by asserting it as an established 
point, that all diseases which affect the human frame are 
merely varieties of a certain cutaneous disorder, of which 
I dare not even write the name before eyes polite, and 
wdiich, as a Scotchman, I feel it a point of nationality to 
keep out of sight. In some cases, said our doctor, this 
malady must be driven in ; in some it must be drawn out. 
In one case, the disease must be assisted in its progress till 
the humours are matured ; in another, it must be attacked 
and counteracted by antidotes. "Jn ague," said he, "which 
is assuredly nothing but a variety of this mysterious com- 
plaint, we see the disease escaping from the human body 
by bleedings at the nose and eruptions of the upper lip, 
clearly making out my theory." 

After- a good deal more in this strain, in which he made 
out his case with equal precision, we asked him about his 
remedies. This proved a fertile theme, and he rung the 
changes on nux vomica, belladona, arsenic, and prussic 
acid, till we stared with the proper and expected degree 
of wonderment. Calomel he scarcely condescended to 
mention^ as rather too weak — like the Fire-King in the 



QUACKERY ABSOLUTISM. 123 

Strand — who disdains hot water for his drink, and ad- 
dicts himself solely to boiling oil or melted lead ! 

When asked how he prepared these formidable medi- 
cines, he became less intelligible ; and upon our showing 
that we did not understand, he smiled with much self- 
satisfaction, and confessed to us that the virtue of his pre- 
parations did not consist so much in the drugs themselves, 
or in the manner in which they were combined, as in the 
magnetic virtue which he imparted to them. This, I 
thought, was sailing very near the wind, and I exchanged 
glances with the Countess, who was lying on her pillows 
in *a state of the highest enjoyment, for she had a nice 
perception of the ridiculous ; and on this occasion her 
amusement was perhaps heightened by some involuntary 
traces of faith in the pretender. At all events, she eager- 
ly encouraged the learned German to go on, and begged 
to be informed whether the magnetic virtue of which he 
spoke was communicated by the touch and through his 
hands ; and also, how it happened that so subtile a fluid 
as magnetism, could be arrested and embodied permanent- 
ly in a packet of powders ? 

"Oh V^ cried the adept, "it is not by the hands at all, 
but by the force of mind, that I convey to these medicines 
the magnetic influence which gives them their peculiar 
eflicacy. I feel, as it were, the efibrt of good will, the 
strong desire to do good, in my mind, and this is follow- 
ed by the power of imparting the requisite degree of vir- 
tue to these powders, which, if swallowed by the patient 
in a similar spirit, that is, with undoubting faith in their 
efficacy, will be certain to effect a cure." 

" Whatever be the disease ?" we asked. 

"Whatever be the disease," replied he. "My exist- 
ence," continued he, now fully warmed with the friction 
of his subject, "and that of my patients is closely con- 
nected — my life is, as it were, a continuation or link in 
the chain of theirs." 

" That is very odd," we ventured to remark. "But 
pray how is this connexion manifested?" 

"Oh !" cried he, "in various ways. I can tell, at any 
distance, the very moment when my patients are swal- 
lowing my powders. If I write a letter, for instance, to 



124 QUACKERY ABSOLUTISM. 

a person, giving him instructions what powder to take, I 
can tell, however far oflf I may be, whether he attends to 
what I have said, provided he have faith in what he is 
told!" 

This, it will be allowed, was carrying quackery about 
as far as human credulity can be supposed capable of fol- 
lowing. But there .seems to reside in the minds of very 
many persons a morbid confidence in the pretensions of 
those who are bold enough to assert their claims to infalli- 
bility, and have a share of talents and address sufficient to 
support their claim by a certain degree of success, as well 
as the most boundless assuran'ce in repudiating all failure 
as consequent upon their own loudly applauded measures. 

Perhaps the charlatan's chance of success — I mean of 
his gaining his object — is all the greater, if he works 
his cures by means that are miraculous. For there are 
always multitudes of persons who have not the power 
of thinking for themselves at any time, and who, when 
they fall ill, are 'still less capable of exercising an inde- 
pendent judgment. If, unfortunately for them, but fortu- 
nately for the Dousterswivel of the day, their malady is 
incurable, and has already been treated by regular prac- 
titioners without effect, the quack's chance is improved. 
I mean his chance of working on the imaginations of his 
victims — whom he raises from the depths of despair into. 
full confidence and hope. It will often happen in such 
cases, that the potent drugs which are administered will 
stimulate and exhilarate the patient for a time, and make 
him believe that he is cured. Partly from conviction, 
partly from a natural wish to confirm themselves and 
others in their own belief, and partly from gratitude, they 
proclaim the charlatan's fame all abroad ; and when at last 
they discover their mistake — supposing they do not die, 
which is, of course, the most favourable case for the doc- 
tor ! — they are ashamed to proclaim their own folly and 
credulity. 

It would be a mere waste of time to mention this per- 
sonage's exploits in the cure of horses, dogs, cows, and 
other inferior animals, over which he describes the in- 
fluence of his powders to be as great as it is in the case 
of human beings. This is not quite consistentj I should 



QUACKERY ABSOLUTISM. 125 

have thought ; as the mind, according to his statement, is 
the channel by which the charm works. But let that 
pass ; — his success in both cases, I have no doubt, is alike. 
For my part, the interview afforded me much satisfaction. 
In the first place, I was amused to the top of my bent ; 
and in the next place, the Countess, whatever she thought, 
never, from that day forward, urged me to' take any fur- 
ther notice of her miracle-working neighbour. 

Those who are acquainted with the state of the law in 
Austria might well wonder to hear of such doings — for 
poisonous drugs are notallowed to be sold by the apothe- 
caries, and the medical men are held responsible for the 
lives of their patients. And certainly such things are not 
allowed in Austria Proper, or in those countries — such 
as the Venetian states — which are completely part and 
parcel of her government. The practitioner I have just 
been describing, however, resided in Hungary, where — 
although it forms a part of the Austrian empire — the laws 
in these and almost all other matters are quite different. 
As he lived close to the frontier, there was no way of 
preventing multitudes from flocking over to beseech his 
aid. The little village, therefore, in which he resided 
became crowded like a fashionable watering-place, and I 
have seen the roads for many a league covered with car- 
riages repairing to this great oracle of health 1 

The Austrian Government, had they pleased, might 
certainly have put down the whole affair. And although 
I am very far from accusing so paternal a government — 
for, with all its despotism, it is a paternal government — 
of wilfully encouraging any thing so utterly preposterous 
as the quackery I have been describing, yet I have been 
led, to suspect, from a great number of circumstances, 
which I had an opportunity of seeing or hearing about 
from good authority during my stay in Austria, that the 
government, if not avowedly and purposely, at all events 
instinctively encourages whatever has a tendency to keep 
the human mind in a state of uninvestigating ignorance. 

It is not my present purpose to go at any length into 
this very curious and characteristic feature of the Aus- 
trian system of government. The details are, indeed, 
long and complicated ; but the result is simple, and easily 



126 QUACKERY ABSOLUTISM. 

told. The chief object aimed at seems to be to prevent 
the human mind coming to maturity. Thus the Govern- 
ment does not merely, by the agency of a huge physical 
force, keep down the spring of that exertion which the 
nation, if left at all at liberty, might make to disenslave 
itself, but it effectually prevents even the wish of the peo- 
ple to be free. This it accomplishes, chiefly, by obstruct- 
ing, in every possible way, the growth of thought ; and by 
removing all hope of emancipation, it utterly destroys 
that elasticity of spirits and self-confidence, without which 
nothing can ever be done in the way of reformation. 
The country is overspread with troops, and watched by 
police officers, under the superintendence of whonr nothing 
generous can spring up. It is as if we were to irrigate 
our fields with boiling water, instead of leaving them to 
the cool and invigorating rains and dews of heaven. The 
moral crop in Austria is blighted in the very bud by the 
vicious system of political irrigation. The bitter bread 
of abject servitude which it produces, is repugnant to the 
taste of all who have known better things ; and if it be 
eaten in silence by those who have never left the country, 
it is the silence of ignorant hopelessness, not the tranquil- 
lity of contentment. 

To bring a country into such a state is a melancholy 
affair: To keep it so is a difficult and still more melan- 
choly task. But as the mind is the first and most impor- 
tant thing to be controlled, the most powerful of all moral 
machinery is brought to bear upon it — I mean Religion. 
Before adverting, however, to that important engine, I 
may mention, what indeed most people know, that so ri- 
gorous a censorship of the press is established in Austria, 
that scarcely any foreign books, at all calculated to minis- 
ter to independent thoughts or feelings, are- allowed to 
cross the frontier; and although the most profligate works 
ever printed, are, in point of fact, smuggled in, and sold in 
great numbers, the really good books — those which would 
essentially improve the nation — are generally unknown. 
Those books, therefore, which minister to the sensual ap- 
petites, and give an impulse and direction to vicious indul- 
gences, are to be found in abundance; while those which 
teach habits of self-restraint, and cherish manly and vir- 



QUACKERY ABSOLUTISM. 127 

tuous aspirations, are, in point of practice, carefully ex- 
cluded as dangerous to the established order of things. 

I may also mention that no person, be his rank what it 
may, high or low, in office or out of office, is permitted to 
leave the empire without express permission, and without 
entering into engagements to state where he is going, and 
what are his purposes in going, from home. But the 
most truly hellish device that the wit of man has yet con- 
trived, is the celibacy of the clergy; and until that deep 
curse be removed from the nations of the Continent where 
the Roman Catholic religion prevails, there seems not to 
be a gleam of hope of their obtaining that degree of do- 
mestic virtue, without which no genuine political freedom 
can be hoped for. So long as there exists a numerous, 
widely-spread, and educated class of men, in close al- 
liance with the state, but whose interests are entirely se- 

► parate from those of the rest of the country, and whose 
manners are necessarily, and by universal usage, under- 
stood to be profligate, it is in vain to expect that domestic 
morals will be pure. Were it possible, indeed, to detach 
this privileged class from the rest of the community, there 
might be a hope; but when, through the medium of pub- 
lic preaching, and, above all, of oral confession, and the 

^innumerable other methods by which the priests obtain 
free admissions every where in those countries, they suc- 
ceed in establishing their influence, there is little or no 
hope left. 

It is needless, and would only be painful and disgusting, 
to go into any details. But this may be said, that the 
wide-spread looseness of domestic manners in Italy, Aus- 
tria, and other countries where the same' system prevails, 
not only has its origin in the undue influence and profli- 
gate habits of the priests, but owes its continuance to their 
instrumentality. This depravity pervades all classes, and 
to such an extent, that shame is out of the question; and 
the whispers of conscience being, especially with such 
machinery, the easiest thing possible to set at rest, vice has 
it all its own way. 

In hearty co-operation with the priests comes a huge 
army of a quarter of a million of military men, drawn 
away from their homes, and virtually, in like manner. 



128 QUACKERY ABSOLUTISM. 

condemned to celibacy ; but who are, if possible, even less 
scrupulous than the priests in their morals, and less re- 
strained in their wish to avenge insulted nature by breach- 
es of the law in question. 

This army, as I may have occasion to describe more in 
detail at another time, is employed in peace chiefly in the 
collection of the revenue, or, what is the same thing, to 
punish those who are tardy in their payments. The sol- 
diers are quartered in vast numbers on the inhabitants of 
the villages all over the country, and thus they become 
domesticated in the families of the peasantry. All this 
has the double effect of further corrupting the people, and 
--of showing them how utterly hopeless resistance must be. 
The discipline of the troops is very strict. The corporal 
punishments are greatly more prompt and severe than in 
any other army, and, b}^ one means or another, the most 
implicit obedience is secured. 

Finally, I need scarcely mention that the press, if not 
totally extinguished, is allowed to burn with so feeble a 
flame that it lights to no good. And all foreign literature 
of a generous stamp being, as I have already mentioned, 
jealously excluded, there is exceedingly small chance left 
for instruction; there is little or no bounty on knowledge; 
and as for talents, when they do appear, they are sure to 
be enlisted on the side of Government. Very few foreign- 
ers come into the country at all, and not a man more than 
the Government can prevent. These are chiefly of the 
upper classes, who have the discretion to be silent when 
they know that every word they speak, and every letter 
they send or receive, is liable to be made known to the * 
authorities. On the other hand, as very few persons of 
'high rank, and scarcely any of the middle or lower ranks, 
ever go abroad, there seems hardly a possibility of much 
useful information finding its way into that huge state pri- 
son called Austria. 

Before leaving this topic, I may be allowed to advert to 
one striking effect of a considerable length of residence 
abroad, which is to soften the asperity of political feeling as 
regards party spirit in our own country. The whole 
frame-work of society, political and moral, on the conti- 
nent, is so different — indeed so diametrically opposed in 



THE IMPERIAL TOBACCONIST. 129 

most things to what we have in England, and is often so 
degrading, and, I may well add, disgusting to us — that 
we come in time, and at a distance, to look upon the dif- 
ferences amongst our own politicians as comparatively 
trifling shades of the same thing, which, when we consi- 
der the gulf lying between England and the Continent, 
are really not worthy of being named. We have a Pro- 
testant church and we have genuine liberty — two bless- 
ings which, I affirm, no one can value 4o their full extent 
till they visit Italy and Austria, and see the horrible vices 
engendered and fostered by Catholicism — the misery and 
meanness prom.oted by the despotic espionage — and, 
finally, not only the extinction of freedom, but apparently 
the suppression of almost all wish to be free in those de- 
graded countries. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE IMPERIAL TOBACCONIST. 

'^ Now," said the Countess, triumphantly, " now that 
we have Schloss Hainfeld all to ourselves, I trust I shall 
hear no more of preparations ai:Ki packings up, but that 
you will, like good people, decide upon staying the win- 
ter with me. At all events, that you will stay during the 
severity of the season, and help me to get through this 
trying period, always doubly dreary to me. God knows 
if ever I shall see another spring, and, if it be not impious 
to say so, I hope I never may. My wish," continued 
the forlorn invalid, "would be, to drop off while you are 
here to attend me, instead of being left to die alone — help- 
less myself — and unprotected by others. Oh, do stay 
by me, and 1 may safely promise not to keep you long! 
Your children are as. dear to me almost as to yourselves — 
their companionship, and especially that of the infant, 
gives me a fresher interest in life than I ever dreamed of 
feeling again. But the link will soon snap. I cannot go 

12 



130 THE IMPERIAL TOBACCONIST. 

on long in this way. All my maladies are on the increase^ 
while my physical strength is gradually yielding to the 
pressure of disease. Had you not come to me so provi- 
dentially, I should have been dead by this time; and I 
should have died wretched and alone, with no hand to 
close my eyes or smooth my pillow. Heaven has sent 
you, I feel well assured, to perform these last offices. Do 
not — oh, do not seek to counteract its dispensations!^' 

These appeals were hard to resist; and, in fact, we be- 
gan to feel it a duty to remain by our poor countrywo- 
man at all events till the opening year gave her fresh 
strength and spirits, as we were told it always did. As to 
spirits, howevei', I may repeat that her's never seemed to 
flag even at those moments when severe pain deprived 
her of sleep for many nights together. At any rate, she 
was always tranquil, and good-humoured, and kind to us, 
to an extent that no chances or changes of life can ever ob- 
literate from our memory. 

Our chief happiness, as I hate already mentioned, lay at 
home, as we now called the castle, but we enjoyed our- 
selves all the more, I do not douht, from the occasional 
visits which the Countess's recommendations, more than 
our own wishes, induced us to pay to her neighbours'. 
Early in December, as the winter was still mild and open,^ 
we drove for the second time across the hills north of us. 
A month before we had made a similar expedition; on 
that occasion the day was beautiful, and the scenery being 
of a bolder character than any we had yet seen in Styria, 
though most of the trees were stripped of their leaves, the 
country looked still very warmly clad. Part of this ef- 
fect, no doubt, was due to the large tracks of fir-trees, as 
well as larch and spruce, maintained almost entirely for 
fuel, and likewise to the frequent broad and well-watered 
patches of meadow land spread out like carpets on all the 
level parts of the landscape. The valley in whioh Schloss 
Hainfeld stands, is called the Raab Thai, from the small 
river of that name which flows through it. To the agency 
of thie stream, exercised during the lapse of ages, is to be 
referred the broad belt of flat alluvial soil which marks its 
course, and which is so uncommonly fertile that the weal- 
thy millers on the banks of the stream, and who are most 



THE IMPERIAL TOBACCONIST. 131 

of them landed proprietors, are called the Fursten, or 
princes of the valley. Another similar valley lies some 
leagues to the northward, being divided from the Raab 
Thai by a ridge of mountains, or rather hills, of the most 
irregular and even fantastic shape, and so strangely tossed 
about by the hand of nature, that the hand of man finds it 
very difficult to make any tolerably passable communica- 
tion between the two valleys. As long as your carriage 
is on the bottom on either side of the ridge, it bowls along 
as if you were driving on a billiard-table, and you ex- 
claim, "What delightful roads!'^ but the moment you 
take to the right or left, you would fancy you were driv- 
ing over the streets of Paris when broken up by the 
"*'' Patriots of July." In such a fine day as we had for our 
first expedition in November, we scarcely noticed such 
things, and were tempted to walk a great part of the way 
over the hills.' But a month later, when the weather ad- 
mitted not of walking, it was scarcely possible to recog- 
nize the same scenery, through the rain and mud, boxed 
up in what is sadly misnamed a close carnage, letting in 
the wet *ind wind at twenty paces. 

Although we were much delayed, we had plenty of 
time to visit one of the four great Tobacco "Fabriques," 
as they are called, at which all the tobacco used in Aus- 
tria is prepared. It all -comes originally from Plungary, 
and is strictly monopolized by the government. There 
is one of these fabriques in Poland, one in Bohemia, ano- 
ther in Moravia, and, lastly, this one in Styria. Tobacco 
is not allowed to be cultivated in any part of the Austrian 
dominions except Hungary, from whence it is all trans- 
ported to these great establishments. The usual office of 
a manufactory is to improve the raw material which na- 
ture produces—that is to say, either to separate them from 
what is useless, or to combine them, or to twist them up 
into a manageable shape. But the express business of the 
Austrian tobacco fabriques is to deteriorate the material, 
and to prepare it for the market in a less valuable shape 
than belongs to it when it comes from the field, but in a 
shape in which it is supposed to yield most revenue to 
the government. It appears there are three distinct qua- 
lities or sorts of tobacco — very good, moderately good, 



132 THE IMPERIAL TOBACCONIST. 

and bad. Now the business of the fabriques is to mix 
these three in such proportions that, when the tobacco 
comes into the market, it shall be just good enough to in- 
duce people to buy it, but that it shall contain no more of 
the first sort tl>an can possibly be helped. As the govern- 
ment are the only tobacconists in Austria, it must re- 
quire great nicety in these mixtures, and in the regulation 
of the prices, to insure the maximum of profit; for as there 
is no competition, there can be no just estimate formed on 
these subjects, and all must be guess work. That the 
mixture is too base, and that the price is too high, seems 
to be evidenced by the prodigious extent of smuggling 
carried on along the whole line of the Hungarian frontier, 
and the huge army of custom-house officers, assisted by 
the military, which it is necessary to keep permanently 
on foot. 

The more generally any article is used, especially if it 
be an article of necessity, such as tobacco in Germany, the 
better suited perhaps it is for taxation, and thus tobacco 
may be fairly considered a most fit object on which to 
levy duties. But it may well be questioned whether the 
mode of levying it be not highly oppressive, and whether 
the immense augmentation of price, in consequence of the 
monopoly and the tax, be not more than a counterba- 
lancing evil. In England tobacco is not allowed to be 
cultivated, but the principle of this restriction is not one 
of monopoly. It is adopted because there can be no means 
devised by which the home growth could be distinguished 
from that raised abroad; and as it has been proved it is 
only that which is imported which can be subjected to a 
duty, home cultivation would prove fatal to the immense 
revenue (upwards of three millions sterling) derived from 
this source. But as much or as little as our free competi- 
tors choose, or the country requires, may be introduced. 
Thus with lis the price of the article is augmented by no 
more than the amount of the tax, which to be sure is very 
heavy, being ten or twelve times the original cost of the 
article! But in England, every man who can pay for it 
may purchase any sort of tobacco he pleases. Not so in 
Austria, and thus the hardship is more than doubled, for 
only that which is mixed up at the fabriques is allowed to 



THE IMPERIAL TOBACCONIST. 133 

be sold. So the whole nation is condemned to use a high 
priced bad article, instead of a good one at a reasonable 
cost. The necessities of the state may require the dutj^ 
to be levied, but it seems hard to insist upon the people 
smoking bad tobacco when they might grow better. 

The Austrian government being thus not only the ex- 
clusive deteriorators of tobacco, but the exclusive venders 
of the article, regulate the price at their pleasure, both in 
making their purchases and in making their sales; and 
thus a large, but totally unknown amount of revenue is 
collected — I mean unknown to all but the highest autho- 
rities — for there is no budget in Austria! 

This grievance is deeply felt, and bitterly and univer- 
sally complained of, never loudly of course — but not the 
less deeply on that account. The apologists of the system 
— and it is right to listen to what can be said on the occa- 
sion — say that the government cannot possibly go on 
without this source of revenue, and that, after many trials, 
they have found that any relaxation of the strictest mono- 
poly guarded by the operations of the fabriques, led at 
once to so serious a diminution of the income of the state, 
that the old plan was of necessity resumed. Unfortunate- 
ly, no other method of raising the same amount of reve- 
nue, say the apologists, has yet been suggested, or is ever 
hoped for. 

In the mean time, the expense of guarding the frontier 
is enormous; but as I have no official data to guide me, I 
am afraid to mention the numbers I have heard stated of 
the custom-house officers and regular troops who are per- 
manently stationed along the confines of Hungary. 

The expense, too, of maintaining the numerous smug- 
glers who are taken with tobacco in their possession, is 
very great. In every castle, or country-house along the 
frontiers, there is an express donjon-keep, or prison, for 
the detention of these poor wretches, who are rather hea- 
vily ironed, but who may be employed in field or house- 
work by the proprietor of the castle, at his own risk; that 
is to say, if they escape, he has to pay the fine which the 
government impose, and for the nonpayment of which 
the smugglers are detained. The amount of the fine is 
regulated in this way — when a person is caught intro- 

12* 



134 THE IMPERIAL TOBACCONIST. 

ducing tobacco, the quantity detected is weighed, and he 
is fined a florin for every two German ounces, or about 
one shilling an ounce; and in default of payment, he 
is confined as many days as there have been found 
ounces of tobacco in his possession. I was told that this - 
pecuniary commutation is very seldom paid, and thus the 
offenders are generally kept in confinement during their 
whole period, at the rate of about a month for every pound 
of tobacco. The government makes the proprietor of the 
castle an allowance for the maintenance of each smuggler, 
so that the cost of the whole becomes very considerable. 
As this allowance, however, is inadequate, the oppression 
is severely felt by the frontier proprietors. 

The prison of Hainfeld Castle was any thing but what 
v/e call a dungeon, and figure to ourselves dark and damp. 
The kind-hearted Countess kept the prisoners assigned 
to her charge in a well-barred, but well-aired and well- 
warmed apartment, on the ground-floor of the castle, but 
not under the ground. 

One day I had the curiosity to go into this prison, and 
was much surprised at seeing there a little boy between 
seven and eight years old, and actually much more heavi- 
ly ironed than the men were! On inquiry,! learned that 
he was the son of very indigent parents, who, not being 
able to maintain him themselves, had hired or lent him to 
a neighbouring farmer in somewhat better circumstances.. 
This person unfortunately placed in the boy's charge a little 
child only three months old, and not only permitted him 
to carry it out of doors, but to wander with it out of sight. 
The infant, it appears, one day took a fit of crying which 
the boy could not suppress, and being teased with- the 
noise, or becoming impatient at its refusal to be quiet, he 
deliberately choked it — literally pressed his hands upon 
the wretched infant's neck till it was throttled! It would 
seem that he was aware he had done something wrong, 
for he carried the child to the rivd-, "and then," as he 
said in his examination, " he laid it gently in the water.'' 
He was found sitting on the bank, unconsciously playing 
with the wild flowers, with the dead body of the infant 
lying close by him, under the surface of the stream! 
I talked to the boy, and found that he was not a fool, 



THE GERMAN BED. 135 

but SO entirely uneducated as to be apparently ignorant of 
the most obvious distinctions between right and wrong. 
In short, he had been so totally neglected by his parents, 
that he differed in few respects from a beast of the field. 
His head was remarkably large: and if I had been enough 
of a phrenologist to know how to look for the organ of 
destructiveness, I should of course have found it very 
largely developed. 

The great puzzle with the local authorities was to say 
what ought to be done with this young culprit. To hang 
him would have been too great an outrage on public feel- 
ing, and without any utility, as respects example, the 
great end of punishments; for few children are likely to 
be tempted to murder one another. To let the little 
wretch go without chastisement, however, might have 
been indiscreet; and to confine him for life would have 
been cruel. Perhaps the best plan would have been to 
have removed him to a distant part of the empire, and set 
him down without any one knowing what his crime had 
"been. In that case he might have had a chance of grow- 
ing up a good member of society. 

But the magistrates judged otherwise, and decided upon 
having him soundly whipped in the prison, three times, 
at intervals of a fortnight, and then sent home again. 
Perhaps they did right; but I am inclined to think that 
the suggestion of our Scotch nursery-maid v/ould have 
been still more just, as well as more salutary. She pro- 
posed to whip, not the child, but the parents, to whose 
neglect the crime was so clearly traceable! 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE GERMAN BED. 



On returning, about two o'clock, from our visit to the 
great Tobacco Fabrique, with our eyes, noses and mouths 
filled with snuff, w^e found a handsome, but unostentatious 



136 THE GERMAN BED. 

dinner prepared for us; and we passed a most agreeable 
evening in the society of our kind and accomplished 
friends, who had asked one or two very pleasant people 
to meet us. A dinner at two o'clock, even in winter and 
in good company, makes the evening rather long; and al- 
though our hosts laboured most industriously to make us 
comfortable, and brought ever}'- thing to second that ob- 
ject whicff money could purchase or good-will suggest, 
the result was any thing but successful. We secretly re- 
solved, therefore, to make this excursion the last for the 
season. It may, indeed, be pleasant enough to visit such 
intelligent and hospitable people in fine warm weather; 
but it becomes a diiferent affair entirely when such a for- 
midable element as cold enters into the calculation, espe- 
cially in houses so ill adapted as those we saw in Styria to 
keep out this surly enemy. 

Our good friends near the Tobacco Fabrique had spared 
no expense to make their house elegant. Unfortunately, 
however, the Germans, like the rest of the continentals, 
really do not know what comfort means — at least in our 
sense of the word — and, accordingly they have no word 
for it in their wonderfully copious language. For exam- 
ple — in this house to which I am describing our visit — 
there is not a single carpet. The floors of the principal 
rooms are as beautifully inlaid and polished as a lady's 
work table, — this may be in good taste, but what is the 
result of the elegant expense ? The cold to the feet is ex- 
cessive, while the cost of such floors would have covered 
tliem with comfortable carpets three times over. " Again, 
there is not one open fire-place in the house, except that 
in the kitchen; but instead of cheerful grates, as in Eng- 
land, or fire-places, with blazing logs of wood in them, as 
in Switzerland and France, they have only their wretched, 
lumbering, ugly stoves, which heat the rooms, to be sure, 
but in such a close, stuffy, breathless style, that, to our 
sense at least, comfort is out of the question. 

Moreover, whenever in one of these houses the door is 
opened, the company may be said to be in the open air, 
for every apartment looks into the unprotected corridor. 
In summer this matters not, or matters little; but in win- 
ter, however close the doors be fitted, or however thick 



THE GERMAN BED. 137 

the wood, the cold will pierce through. Even were it 
otherwise, still in passing from room to room, you are 
necessarily exposed to the wind, and a certain share of 
the wet which is driven in. For each trajet we made we 
were exposed to as many changes of air. We dined in 
one room — removed to the pianoforte and music in ano- 
ther — drank tea in a third — besides having to pass from 
our room after dressing for dinner, and returning to it 
again at night; and at each of these changes of location, as 
they say in America, we had truly to make a journey 
"out of doors." It is, indeed, the most preposterous 
tiling imaginable to build houses, in one of the coldest 
parts of Germany, on the principle not of an Italian house 
generally, but of an Italian summer villa! 

In other parts of the world, when the cold becomes ex- 
cessive, and the body cannot be kept warm by such fires 
as are to be found in bad inns, there remains always the 
resource of bed and blankets. At least I knew a family, 
who, in travelling from Paris to London, in the bitter 
winter of 1829-30, were detained at Calais for the greater 
part of a day, and not being able by any quantity of fire- 
wood to keep the circulation sufficiently active, magnani- 
mously went to bed after breakfast, and lay there till the 
steam-boat was ready to start! 

This, unfortunately, you cannot do in Germany; in the 
whole range of which, so far as I have seen, and I liave 
travelled over a great part of it, there is not one tolerable 
bed to be seen ; or if there be, it is in such a place as 
Hainfeld, where the proprietor is either a foreigner, or 
one who has travelled into countries where the comforts 
of the bed-room are considered as essential as the elegancies 
of the drawing-room. 

The Germans are a cleanly, sober, civil, hospitable, 
honest set of people, but they have no idea whatever of 
how the night ought to be passed. Provided they get 
through the day with good faith to their neighbours, 
honour to their king, and devotion to their pipes and 
priests, they seem to think that the other half of the 
twenty-four hours may be got over as if it formed an 
immaterial portion of their time. At all events, I have 
seldom seen a German bed in which an English gentleman 



138 THE GERMAN BED. 

would not feel half ashamed to put one of his tired pointers 
after a day's shooting. I do not dwell on the minor 
discomfort of having no bed-posts or curtains — that one 
is accustomed to elsewhere abroad. What I complain of is 
their being so insufferably small in every one of their di- 
mensions. If you are teased with your feet chafing against 
the boards at the lower end, and you urge yourself up- 
wards, you inevitably knock your head against the top ; 
and if, in despair for want of room lengthwise, yOu coil 
yourself up, and thus, as military men say, widen the base 
of your operations, your knees overhang one side, and 
some counterpoising point must protrude beyond the 
opposite margin. 

So much for the latitude and longitude of your night's 
lodgings. 

Under you is a waving sea of wretchedly-stuffed mat- 
trasses, or an ill prepared sack of straw or Indian corn 
leaves, either of which is a luxury compared to that horror 
of horrors, a feather-bed — which, in nine cases out often, 
you are forced to lie (not to sleep) upon — and, what is 
unspeakably worse, instead of a good honest blanket or 
two over you, there is another of these abominable feather- 
beds. Between these two hateful affairs, there are inserted 
two damp cloths called sheets, but which might with more 
propriety, so far as size is concerned, be named pocket- 
handkei chiefs. To complete the furniture of the bed, 
there is laid over it, in the daytime, a counterpane of 
muslin, with a showy fringe, and sometimes worked with 
flowers — a gaudy covering to the misery which lies buried 
beneath, "like roses o'er a sepulchre." 

I would ask any single gentleman or lady, or lady and 
gentleman combined in wedlock, how the livelong night 
-^as it may well be called, when passed in a German bed 
in a German winter — -can possibly be arranged with 
comfort on such terms? " The thing is wnpossible," as 
the celebrated Hoby said to a customer who required a 
pair of handsome and comfortable boots for a pair of legs 
twisted like the ^ (sz) of the German alphabet. In like 
manner, I avow it to be WTipossible to sleep comfortably 
in any German bed ; and it might almost seem as if there 
were some moral, physical, or political law against con- 



THE GERMAN BED. 139 

structing beds in that country more than three-quarters 
of an ell in width. 

Be these speculations as they may, they contribute 
nothing to help one to get through the night in Germany ; 
and I took the liberty, when travelling, or when visiting 
any of the Countess's friends near Hainfeld, to bring my 
nautical resources into play on this important occasion • 
and I am sure the German chambermaids must have been 
greatly edified, as I could see they were greatly astonished, 

by my devices. My first operation was to wheel, or 

as castors are unlgiown in those remote regions of the 
globe — to drag two of the things called beds together, and 
having placed th^m side by side, and thus doubled the 
width of the platform, I set my people to sew the sheets 
together, so as to make one pair out of the two. The 
ponderous covering of a feather-bed, however, admitted 
of no substitute. When on, we were too warm; when 
off, too cold. Thus we were obliged to pass the night in 
a sort of perpetual ague — a shivering and a hot fit by turns 
— as the feather-bed was pulled on, or kicked off. On 
some occasions, indeed, by dint of much asking, we 
contrived to get, not blankets, because they are totally 
unknown, but heavy cotton-coverlids, which, in like 
manner, we sewed together; and thus, at last, after the 
expenditure of a considerable portion of time and patience, 
and no small labour, a tolerably comfortable, or, at all 
events, a less wretchedly uncomfortable bed was rigged 
out. 

As every traveller ought, of course, to have the moral 
improvement of his fellow-creatures at heart, I made it a 
rule never to undo these valuable stitches and other noc- 
turnal arrangements on quitting any house; but left the 
whole apparatus as a model for imitation throughout the 
German empire. I knew a gentleman who, in travelling 
through Spain, quietly deposited a Bible in every posada, 
or public house, in which he passed the night. The 
Inquisition, however, had very nearly laid him by the 
heels for his heretical attempts to reform the religious 
principles of the Spaniards ; and I was occasionally not 
without some apprehension that my attempts to improve 
the "Domestic manners of the Germans" might be taken 



140 SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE. 

notice of by the Censura or the Police, and the extrava- 
gant indelicacy implied in the advocacy of a doehle bed, 
be publicly reprobated by my expulsion from the country. 



CHAPTER XV. 

SACRED AND PROFANE UOVE. 

In the Borghese Palace at Rome, there is a picture, I 
think by Titian, which passes under the above name; but 
no one appears to be able to decide which of the figures 
was intended to represent Sacred, and which Profane, love. 
Perhaps the artist was thinking of neither when he painted 
the picture ; and merely desired to represent two beautiful 
figures, one of whom is overloaded with the ornaments of 
dress, the other unencumbered with any drapery. Be 
this as it may, there certainly is an ambiguity about the 
design of the picture, which in some degree diminishes 
its interest. 

There will not, however, be any difficulty in distin- 
guishing between the two sorts of love which are sketched 
in the following true stories, of which both the scenes are 
laid in Germany ; one occurred in Lower Styria, and so 
close to Hainfeld that we had an opportunity of learning 
the minutest particulars ; the other in the north, at Frank- 
fort on the Maine. The Countess, indeed, from whom 1 
had the first story, was well acquainted with some of the 
parties. 

About eight or ten years ago, there lived in Gratz the 
widow of an officer in the Austrian army, and her daugh- 
ter. The girPs beauty is described by all who knew her, 
as of that dazzling and surpassing lustre which engaged 
the attention of every class of admirers. It united cor- 
rectness of features with sweetness of expression ; and to 
these were added, a native elegance of manners, and a 
kindliness of disposition, together with abilities and taste, 
which, had they been duly cultivated, would have fitted 



SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE. 141 

poor Leonora for the highest stations in any society. 
Unfortunately, this Leonora's mother was very unlike the 
pious matron in Burger's well-known tale, for she taught 
her child to look any where but to heaven for protection ; 
and, instead of seeking for a suitable alliance for her daugh- 
ter, the sordid and infamous wretch dreamed only of the 
gain — the base pecuniary gain, w^hich the girl's beauty 
might bring to herself. 

In this horrid view she neglected her daughter's mind, 
or rather, she deliberately perverted it ; while she spared 
no pains to bring forward and enhance the charms of her 
person. Her wicked purpose was but too soon known 
to the profligate and wealthy of the other sex, amongst 
whom this poor young wornan may be said to have been 
put up to auction. 

The highest bidder^was a nobleman of the adjacent pro- 
vince of Hungary, who agreed to buy the girl, as if she 
had been a slave, for several thousand florins. The wily 
mother took his bond for the sum, without any specifica- 
tion of the services for which it was given. On a stated 
day the Baron, who was a married man with a family, 
came in his own carriage, received his purchase, signed 
the bond, and drove off towards one of his numerous 
castles. Before he had gone half a league, however, he 
was met by a courier bringing letters which required his 
immediate presence at home ; and as he could not well 
take his companion with himj he drove back to Gratz 
with his victim, and requested the mother to give her 
lodging for a few days, till he could settle his afiairs ; after 
which he promised to return and take her away perma- 
nently. 

The story soon got wind, and a wealthy commissary 
having caught a glimpse of the girl, at once made propo- 
sals to the mother, and she, without the least ceremony, 
and as might have been expected, resold the poor child, 
who, being still under sixteen, was allowed no voice in 
the matter. 

By and by the first purchaser came back and demand- 
ed the completion of his bargain. 

" What bargain ?" cried the mother, laughing in his 
face. "It is I who demand the completion of the bar- 

13 



142 SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE. 

gain. Here is your bond for three thousand florins, 
for value received^ and pay me you shall, if there be 
either law or justice in Austria.^^ 

The Baron raved and stormed, refusing to pay a kreu- 
zer ; while the lady, dead alike to public shame and to 
private virtue, straightway went to law ; and although, 
of course, a bond expressly for such a horrid purpose 
would not have held good in the courts, there could be no 
valid objection made to the instrument as it was drawn 
up. The Hungarian was accordingly obliged to pay the 
money, with costs. 

Mean while, the commissary, getting tired of his bar- 
gain, cast off the poor ruined girl, who dropped, step by 
step, and with a rapidity proportionate to her still radi- 
ant beauty, into the lowest depths of infamy, want, and 
sorrow ! 

In this wretched state she was accidentally seen by a 
young man, son of a wealthy proprietor in a village near 
Hainfeld. He brought her to the country with him, and 
she was no sooner relieved from the coarse depra.vity of 
her recent town life, than she recovered a sufficient por- 
tion of her former animation to engage the attention of 
one of the officers of a hussar regiment, quartered in the 
village. This young man, who was the vson of an old and 
highly esteemed officer in the service of the Emperor, at 
first merely trifled with the girl ; but ere long became 
passionately attached to her, and she to him, with a de- 
gree of violence highly characteristic of the national tem- 
perament when strongly excited. The result was not less 
so. 

The colonel of the regiment, well knowing the extent 
to which these things were sometimes carried, wrote to 
the 3^oung man's father, who, in conjunction with the 
colonel, took every measure that could be thought of to 
break off so dangerous a connexion; but it proved in vain. 
It was now resolved, in order to prevent an unsuitable 
marriage, to detach the young officer on a distant service 
in Transylvania, and to send the girl, by force, back to 
her mother's house at Gratz. 

As soon as thes.e arrangements became known to the 
parties, they resolved to elope — he to desert from the 



SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE. « 143 

army, she to accompany him. They escaped accordingly, 
at| midnight — two ruined wretches, galloping to dgfetruc- 
tion and disgrace, whichever way their passions,' alto- 
gether uncontrolled, might lead them ! At daybreak their 
flight was discovered, and twenty mounted parties being 
sent oJ9f in as many different directions, the fugitives were 
soon arrested. They had got as far as Radkesburg, a 
town on the banks of the great river Mur, about four 
hours' drive south of Hainfeld. But as they stated that 
they were too much exhausted to go back immediately, 
the officer in command of the party who had arrested 
them, made no objections to their remaining at the inn, 
under a guard. This interval, which the good nature of 
the officer allowed them to pass together, they employed 
chiefly in writing letters. Their cheerfulness astonished^ 
every one who saw them, especially some officers of a 
regiment stationed in the town, and whose mess was 
held at the inn where the lovers were. An invitation to 
dinner naturally followed, and was accepted, under the 
sanction of the officer who guarded and accompanied 
them. 

After dinner, some one came running in to say that the 
ice which had dammed up the Mur had suddenly given 
way, and that what is called a Debacle, was the consequence. 
The river, swollen to twice its usual dimensions, was 
gushing tumultuously through the arches of the bridge, 
filled to the key-stone with blocks of drift ice. 

The officers all ran off* to see the. sight, and Leonora^ 
having exchanged an intelligent glance with her compan- 
ion, petitioned hard to be allowed to go too. The guard 
consented, and away they all went together. The awful 
scene had attracted half the population of the town. On 
the highest point of the bridge stood the group of officers, 
wondering and admiring, Leonora leaned over the para- 
pet and observed the commotion with a steadier eye than 
any of the party ; and then turning to her lover, ex- 
claimed, — 

"Now, Wilhelm !" 

And, clasped in one another's arms, they flew head- 
long into the torrent, in which they were instantly swal- 
lowed up and lost ! 



144 SACRED AND PROPANE LOVE. 

Two letters were found in the girl's handwriting. 
One of these addressed to the person who had brought her 
to the country : the other to her mother. In the first, she 
said, — 

" You used to reproach me with having no heart, and 
of my being incapable of any heroic or noble action. I 
then believed that you were right in your estimate of my 
character. I did not believe that I could love any one, 
still less that any one could love me. Both, however, 
have come to pass. The close of my brief life will prove 
whether or not I can act nobly V 

To her mother she had wTitten the following bitter 
words : — 

" Before this reaches your hands, your most wretched 
daughter will be no more. Her blood be on your head. She 
possessed qualities which would have done you honour, 
and made her virtuous and happy, had you duly cherished 
them, or even allowed them^to grow of themselves. Your 
avarice blasted them all. You taught me to consider vice 
a duty. You see the result. Your daughter has at last 
awakened to life and love — only to die in despair V 

The painful impressions which every part of this story 
is calculated to leave on the mind will be relieved by the 
following narrative ; for the truth of every particular of 
which I can answer. At first sight, it might seem that 
no two pictures of national manners, or rather of national 
sentiment, could be more opposed to each other ; and this 
is certainly true, so far as regards the incidents, but the 
guiding principle in both is a depth of feeling, and a reso- 
lution of purpose essentially German. 

Not many years ago a young man, eldest son of a gen- 
tleman holding a high situation in one of our colonial 
possessions, came over to Frankfort, after having studied 
for some time at Cambridge. His object was partly to 
read for his examination preparatory to entering the 
church, and partly to learn the German language. Being 
a man of studious habits and reserved disposition, he was 
for some time little seen, and scarcely known or heard of 
in that bustling city. 

It was during this period of comparative seclusion that 
Bertrand, as the hero of my story my be called, acciden- 



SACRED AND PROPANE LOVE. 145 

tally met with a young German lady, to whom I shall 
give the name of Berglein, then about seventeen years of 
age, and very pretty. She was of a good family ; but from 
unfortunate circumstances their means had been reduced, 
and she, in order to support her widowed mother and 
herself, had taken the resolution of going on the stage as 
a singer. The Germans are severe critics in this matter, 
and she had much to struggle against; but her fine and 
well-cultivated voice, her beauty, her elegant manners, 
and her irreproachable conduct, gradually won for her' 
the esteem and the admiration of the public. 

Bertrand lost his heart at first sight; but he was a man 
of too much sense and knowledge of the, world to be led 
away merely by a pretty face and sweet voice ; and though 
he thought he saw under these attractions many other 
qualities of a higher order, and worthy of a permanent at- 
tachment, he concealed all he thought and felt for a con- 
siderable time. During this interval he abstained with a 
very reasonable and cautious but most rare self-denial 
from manifesting the slightest symptom of his growing 
passion, being firmly resolved to study the character and 
disposition of his fair friend before he declared his love, 
or embarked in such a wild adventure as, he could not 
conceal from himself, the tide of his passions was rapidly 
sweeping him into. 

At this period. of the history accidental circumstances 
brought hin> more into company, and people began to 
wonder where or how so intelligent and agreeable a per- 
son had remained so long concealed amongst them. In 
his turn he was equally pleased to find society amongst 
his country people, who could not only advance his pro- 
fessed objects, but who, as it happened, could aid his 
secret hopes and wishes. 

It is a safe general rule in the affairs of the heart to 
hold no communication on the subject except with the 
person who is most concerned in keeping the secret, if it 
is to be one, and in whose custody it is safest till the fit- 
ting moment of disclosure. Under such peculiar circum- 
stances, however, of doubt and probable difiiculty in the 
conduct of this affair, Bertrand did well to take counsel ; 
and he was not less fortunate in friendship than in love. 

13* 



146 SACRED AltD PROFANE LOVE* 

At first, his friend, as might be expected, saw the trans- 
action with very different eyes, and even thought the 
youth a little non compos to dream of a serious engage- 
ment with a foreign actress. He expostulated with him 
of course on the precarious nature of such a step, and the 
hazard in which it placed his future prospects of happi- 
ness. Bertrand's natural answer to all this was : " Is 
there any thing in the birth, character, education, or con- 
duct of this young lady which renders her an unsuitable 
person for an English clergyman^s wife ?" His friend's 
local acquaintance was extensive, and his inquiries, though 
quiet, were diligent and searching. The result proved 
every way satisfactor}?- ; for those who had known her 
from her childhood were equally warm in their approval 
of her education, temper, and principles, with those who 
had known her more recently, and since she had earned 
the regard of the public. 

Thus fortified in his resolutions, Bertrand allowed 
matters to run on, for nearly a year of increasing inti- 
macy, when it became necessary that he should return to 
England. Before leaving Frankfort, however, he made 
his declaration, and met with a ready and happy return 
of afiection and confidence on the part of the lady. His 
plan was to pass his examination at Cambridge, and then 
to come back immediately. 

It was a cold and rainy night when he took his depar- 
ture, and the poor fellow was in wretched spirits. All 
the folly — so to call it — of his strange adventure stared 
him in the face : all the chances of fortune ; all the oppo- 
sition he was sure to meet with ; all the doubts and fears, 
in short, of a lover's mind, crowded round him, and 
formed the companions of his solitary journey. Nor 
could his cooler friends help thinking, as the carriage 
drove away, that the whole was a mere romance ; and, 
like an unhappy fairy tale, must prove an unsubstantial, 
painful dream. A few weeks' residence in England, 
thought they, will cure the poor youth of this anomalous 
attachment, and break off a connexion so little confor- 
mable to English habits and sober views of prudence, 
especially in the case of a clergyman. 

All these speculations, however, were dissipated by 



SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE* 147 

Bertrand's reappearance at Frankfort one fine day, true 
to his appointment. Whilst in England, he had been 
ordained by the Bishop of London ; and it was arranged 
that in three weeks he should proceed to India to officiate 
as chaplain at the same station with his father. Thus he 
had but little time to pass with the poor devoted girl, 
who having given away her whole heart, looked with a 
sort of despair to being left alone in the wide world. 
Bertrand, on his side, had no small struggle to make be- 
tween his inclinations and his sense of duty. But he 
acted with great firmness and honour; and his merit is 
the greater from his being what is called his own master. 
For the rest, he was sufficiently in love to commit almost 
any rash act, so far as concerned himself; but he justly 
considered it incumbent upon him to disclose his secret 
to his father and mother, and in good faith, and by legi- 
mate means, to obtain, if possible, their hearty consent to 
his marriage. To give him any chance of accomplishing 
this primary duty, it appeared absolutely necessary that 
he should join his parents, and make his explanations in 
person. " If, however," said he, to the despairing girl, 
"•' after fulfilling my duty as a good son, and having used 
my best endeavours to win their approbation of our union, 
I find that I cannot succeed, I shall still act up to the 
sacred engagements I have contracted here, and not fail to 
return to Europe to make you my wife, be the conse- 
quences what they may." 

The poor young woman considered the voyage to India 
a journey to the next world, or thereabouts ; for her own 
circumscribed notions of distance reached little farther 
than to Offenbach, or to Mayence, the Ultima Thule of 
her travels. She was accordingly well nigh broken 
hearted at the idea of being separated from her lover by 
the great ocean ; by the globe itself, indeed ; and she in 
all probability thought, in spite of her firm reliance on 
his honour, that he might find it impossible ever to return 
to her. Whatever were the fears that flitted through her 
mind, however, she gave them no expression ; still less 
did she seek to combat his sense of right, or to interfere 
with what on the contrary she fully agreed with him in 
considering his duty to his parents. 



148 SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE. 

She, too, had her severe sacrifices to make on the score 
of duty ; and she made them with a steadiness and. vigour 
of character which, though they distressed him at the mo- 
ment, could not fail to estahlish her' worth more firmly in 
his breast. 

He felt naturally a strong desire that she should forth- 
with quit the stage, and employed every argument he could 
think of to induce her to agree to this. He also placed in 
her hands a letter of credit to the full amount of her pro- 
fessional salary, in order that, on retiring from the theatre, 
she might not be deprived of the means of supporting her 
mother and several younger brothers and sisters. Her 
delicacy naturally shrunk from receiving any support from 
him previous to marriage ; and she replied, with an honour- 
able pride, that having gone upon the stage from a convic- 
tion that it was right, she would not now shrink from doing 
her duty, while all the circumstances remained as before, 
with the exception of her own future prospects, and these 
were contingent. There could be nothing inconsistent or 
unsuitable, still less disreputable, she wisely thought, in 
following industriously that course of life which, experi- 
ence was just beginning to show her, afforded her the 
means of supporting her family. To a mind so constitu- 
ted, and a heart so engaged, the dangers of such a career 
were nothing at all, however severe the labours might 
prove, or however humiliating its conditions might some- 
times appear to a generous disposition and refined taste, 
when contrasted with the almost boundless enjoyments of 
the life which fortune, she fondly whispered, might still 
have in reserve to reward her perseverance and truth. 

In this temper they parted ; and though the smart of 
such a separation was very bitter, it had not only no re- 
morse and no misgivings to keep the wound open, but 
was soothed by the cheerful consciousness of rectitude, — 
a consciousness which, while it always lessens sorrow, 
generally serves, even in a greater ratio, to brighten hope. 
On the present occasion there was need of all such sup- 
port, and the painful interval of more than ttvo years' sep- 
aration became an ordeal to their true love, which would 
have scattered a less well-founded passion to the winds 
and waves. It only deepened and confirmed theirs. 



SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE. 149 

Scarcely was Bertrand gone when all the world began 
to criticise his conduct in every possible way ; and, sin- 
gularly enough, the very honourable and judicious motive 
which had prompted him to defer his marriage for the 
present was tortured into an argument against him in the 
eyes of the public. It was maintained that his desire to 
obtain his parents' consent was a mere excuse, and all the 
worse for taking upon itself the pretext of a duty ; that he 
had all along been insincere; and, in short, that the woman 
he had trifled with would never see him, or hear of him 
again. Much of this and many other things came to the 
poor girFs ears through the industrious kindness of her 
friends. She could not help being much distressed at what 
was so. freely handed to her from every corner of the 
town ; but she never gave way in the least, and only the 
more fondly cherished in silent confidence her deep-rooted 
conviction of her lover's honesty and sincerity through- 
out, and with every appearance of good reason she reck- 
oned on his constancy, knowing how true she was her- 
self. 

In process of time letters arrived, written during the 
voyage, from Madeira and elsewhere. These quieted the 
noise for a time ; but, by degrees, the first notions gained 
fresh ground with the charitable multitude. As month 
after month elapsed, the good people of Frankfort, who 
are not very skilful in general geography, and may not 
well understand the nature of an Indian voyage, and the 
causes of delay in such correspondences, fancied themselves 
quite secure in their belief that Bertrand was never serious 
when he made hi& proposals. 

He, however, wrote constantly, and much of all this 
gossip might no doubt have been put to rest had not a be- 
coming dignity on the lady's part restrained her from 
making known these communications. 

After about a year and a half had passed in this way, a 
new and very distressing source of uneasiness beset the 
lady. Her mother's patience, which had been gradually 
becoming less and less as month after month rolled away, 
altogether left her ; and she began to reproach her daughter 
day and night with her folly in neglecting the solid ad- 
vantages of a lucrative profession for the vain chimera of 



150 SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE. 

a happiness which, to all appearance, was never likely to 
be realized. All this the daughter could only submit to in 
silent mortification ; but when urged to make use of the 
letter of credit left with her, she declared positively that 
she never would take any advantage of his generosity un- 
til she was his wedded wife. 

These expostulations, by being constantly reiterated,' 
produced a certain effect, though not exactly that which 
was aimed at. It was not unnatural also, that after two- 
and-twenty months had elapsed, occasional moments of 
despondency should occur; and all the more naturally, 
perhaps, as her own affections remained unchanged. In 
the midst of these harassing troubles, she received the im- 
portant intelligence that Bertrand's father and mother had 
at last consented to his marriage, though his letter held 
out no positive hopes of his obtaining immediate leave to 
come to Europe. 

This communication, and the renewed and ardent as- 
surances of his attachment, enabled her to bear up under 
the many trials she had yet to go through. Her mother, 
however, who had lost all confidence, and who took only 
a business-like and un poetical view of the matter, never 
ceased importuning her daughter to quit the narrow field 
of Frankfort, and seek to better her condition by trying 
to obtain an engagement on higher terms at some other 
theatre. It was very difficult for the poor girl to hold out 
against such arguments, when not only unsupported by 
friends, but actually persecuted by enemies. In the first 
place, she was exposed to the constant and unfeeling jeers 
of the people about her, and, in the next, to the tyranny of 
a certain powerful personage, who, because she had rejected 
his repeated advances and bribes with the utmost scorn, 
chose, in revenge, to impede her professional advance- 
ment, and to annoy her in every possible way. The pas- 
sive resignation with which she endured all this at length 
gave way, and in a fit of despair she yielded to her mother's 
representations and entreaties, and threw up her moderate 
engagement at Frankfort. 

In the depth of winter, and after she had been for many 
weary months without receiving a line from Bertrand, she 
set out with her mother on a professional tour to Stutgardt, 



SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE. 151 

Munich, and Vienna. In spite of her being extremely 
low-spirited and disconsolate, and in the worst mood which 
could be imagined to contribute, night after night, to the 
amusement of the public, she produced everywhere a great 
impression. Her unaffected melancholy, her amiable and 
gentle manners, and her personal attractions, won for her 
everywhere many friends amongst persons of taste and 
understanding ; while her voice and other accomplishments 
received the applause of the multitude. But praise fell 
dead upon her ear, and the success which she met with 
contributed fully as much to wound her delicacy as to 
gratify her pride ; and though the mother rejoiced at these 
opening prospects, the girl herself wept in secret bitterness 
of spirit over her own popularity. In the midst of these 
applauses, she wrote constantly to her distant lover, and 
the burthen of every page was, "Come quickly, and fetch 
me away j I am heartily sick of this wretched kind of 
life." 

Towards the end of spring it was known at Frankfort 
that she had been engaged, on very advantageous terms, 
at one of the principal theatres of Vienna; and what asto- 
nished and mortified those who were in the secret of her 
history, it appeared that she had signed a contract for two 
years. It was the more surprising and provoking that 
she had been compelled to adopt this course by the impor- 
tunities of the people about her, as Bertrand had written 
in the autumn to say, that in the beginning of the year he 
hoped to obtain leave of absence. As she had not since 
heard from him, she ought no doubt to have abidecl by the 
words of his last letter, and so she promised and resolved 
to do; but it is one thing to resolve and promise to be 
prudent and cautious, and another to act in that spirit in 
the midst of doubts and difficulties, and especially in the 
face of those considerations which take the name of duties, 
and are urged with earnestness, by those to whom essen- 
tially our obedience is due. 

However this may be judged of by persons who have 
been exposed to such domestic influence — to call it by its 
mildest term — our poor, worn-out heroine at last gave 
way, and signed the contract which bound her for two 



152 SACRED AND PROFANE LOVU. 

* 

years to a slavery of no small severity, as the issue will 
show. 

Two days after she had taken this incautious step, a 
letter was received from Bertrand himself, dated London, 
and addressed to his faithful friend at Frankfort. Of 
course it enclosed one for the lady he hoped almost im- 
mediately to call his wife, and he instructed his friend to 
put it into her own hands immediately, for he took it for 
granted, poor fellow! that she was still at Frankfort. 

It also appeared, that owing to some misapprehension 
of the proper forms, he had quitted India without having 
received the regular official leave, so that, on his presenting 
himself at the Foreign Office, he was called upon to ex- 
plain the reason of being absent from his post. This he 
found no difficulty in doing, so far as was necessary to 
exculpate himself. Nevertheless, as his being absent was 
deemed quite irregular, he was peremptorily required to 
return forthwith in the very vessel which had brought 
him to Europe. 

Now, as this ship was to sail about the end of June, 
and it was already past the 20th of May, he had no time 
to lose, even supposing that he had nothing but his mar- 
riage to get settled. To render him eligible, however, for 
the appointment which had been sent out to him, but 
which had crossed him on his way home, it was necessary 
that he should be back in England on the 10th of June, to 
be examined by the Bishop of London previous to his ad- 
mission to priest's orders. So great was his haste, that he 
wrote to beg his friend to look out for any English cler- 
gyman who might be travelling through Frankfort, and, 
if possible, induce him to stay there a day or two, that the 
marriage ceremony might be performed at the British 
'Mission. 

On the 27th of May, he arrived at Frankfort, and there 
learned with unspeakable dismay, that the lady was ab- 
sent, at a distance, and a bond-servant, as will be seen, to 
no very lenient task-masters. His disappointment and 
grief were excessive; but there was no leisure for regrets, 
and time pressed hard upon him. Nothing, however, 
could be done till her answer came to his first letters from 
London on his arrival from India, and he was obliged to 



SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE. 153 

wait, in an agony of suspense, till the 3d of June, before 
her reply reached him at Frankfort. 

Nor did the contents of the despatch serve materially 
to lessen his distress; on the contrary, they threw a fear- 
ful damp over the whole business. In words, breathing 
the deepest despair, she announced to her half-distracted 
lover that the manager was inexorable, and would not 
hear of her leaving Vienna one hour before the expira- 
tion of the two years stipulated in the fatal contract. How 
to act, she said, she knew not; and bitter were the re- 
proaches she heaped on herself for having been weak 
enough to sign the ill-fated bond, which chained her to as 
galling a servitude as ever broke the heart of any galley 
slave. 

"For mercy's sake!" she wrote, "do not condemn me, 
or suppose that in contracting these odious engagements I 
dreamed of breaking faith with you. My love and faith 
are the same, and must be so for ever, and I beseech you 
to come to Vienna without a moment's loss of time, to 
bring me away, for in truth I am beside myself. I have 
no one to advise — no one to act for me." 

We may conceive his state of mind on finding himself 
unable to comply with a request so urged. But it was 
quite impossible for him, without utter ruin to all his 
prospects, to fail in his appointment in England on the 
10th. What was to be done? It struck him and others, 
that, if an application could be made to the British minis- 
ter at Vienna, stating all the circumstances, and request- 
ing him to intercede with the Austrian authorities, she 
might possibly succeed in getting off. So firmly indeed 
was he persuaded that this plan would prove successful, 
that, when an obliging and kind official friend undertook 
to write to Vienna in the terms suggested, he became 
comparatively tranquil, and started the next day for Lon- 
don. He hoped, he said, to be back at Frankfort by the 
ISth, after his ordination — by which time he had no doubt 
the lady would have arrived, and if the marriage could 
take place on the 19th or 20th of June, there would still 
be time to reach Portsmouth by the 30th, on which day 
the Fairy Queen — the romantic and appropriate name of 
the good ship — was to set sail for India. 

14 



154 SACRED AND PROPANE LOVE. 

The promised letters were written to the authorities at 
Vienna, but before any answer had been received, Bertrand 
suddenly reappeared at Frankfort on the 14th, several 
days sooner than it had been calculated he could by pos- 
sibility have returned. To his eager and breathless inter- 
rogatories, " Where is she? — where can I find her?" only 
the forlorn answer could be given that nothing was yet 
known. 

Under the influence of the cheerful views of his friends, 
and their confident hopes of all going right and in good 
time for his voyage, he became a little more composed., 
and related to them how it had been possible for him to 
return to Frankfort so much sooner than he had contem- 
plated. 

It appeared that the Bishop of London, seeing him much 
agitated, had begged to know the cause of his anxietv. 
Those who have the happiness of being personally ac- 
quainted with this no less amiable than distinguished pre- 
late, need not be told with what kindly interest he would 
listen to such a story. Nor will they be surprised at the 
prompt and business like goodness of heart which induced 
him at once to suggest to the young man to defer his or- 
dination until his arrival in India. One of the newly ap- 
pointed bishops, he said, was to sail in a fortnight, and to 
him the necessary letters demissory should be given, em- 
powering him to ordain our friend on his arrival. His 
Lordship may well have conceived that the young man's 
thoughts and feelings were at this moment rather too 
deeply fixed on the things of this earth for him to attend 
adequately to the calm and deliberate considerations con- 
nected with the solemn ceremony alluded to. The good 
Bishop did not say so, however, but having merely ex- 
pressed the strongest interest in the eventual success of 
these romantic adventures, he begged the young man in- 
stantly to return to Frankfort, because he must insist upon 
his sailing at the end of the month, as had been ordered 
by the Foreign Office. 

I forgot to mention that Bertrand had lodged a couple 
of hundred pounds with the captain of the Fairy Queen, 
as part of the passage money for himself and his wife to 
India; and he had requested the captain, of whom he had 



SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE. 155 

made a cordial friend on his voyage homewards, to wait 
for him until the first week of July. To this the other 
consented; for although it was some days later than he 
intended to sail, he, in common with every one who knew 
the circumstances, took a sort of personal interest in our 
hero's success. 

The 1st of July, however, was now fast approaching, 
and tlie poor fellow, half dead with anxiety, was obliged 
to wait at Frankfort till some answer came. He did ex- 
pect, indeed, that she for whom he w^ched would arrive 
in person to set all to rights. The road leading from Vi- 
enna was his only haunt; and every carriage that came 
that way, partook of his scrutiny; but all in vain. Love 
seemed to be wingless in this case;' and as the post in 
Germany is but a poor representative of Cupid, it was not 
till the I8th, four weary days after Bertrand's arrival 
from England, that a letter reached him from Vienna. 

The lady of his love, it see^jned, was in as bad a predica- 
ment as ever was any captive damsel in a romance. Her. 
position, she wrote,- was almost hopeless; for the manager 
was not only inexorable, and deaf to all her prayers and 
tears, but so apprehensive that she would attempt to cut 
and run, that he applied to the authorities, and requested 
them to refuse her a passport, in the event of her applying 
for one. General orders were accordingly given to this 
effect; and two police officers being placed night and day 
at the door of the house in which she and her mother 
lodged, she was, to all intents and purposes, a prisoner. 
True to the proverb, however, the pitli of the lady's let- 
ter lay in the postscript, which set forth, in a few myste- 
rious words, that something was doing at that moment 
which might possibly end in her release; but what this 
something was, she purposely avoided explaining, lest her 
letter might be tampered with. 

This communication naturally inc/eased the embarrass- 
ments of our hero's desperate condition, and the grand 
question became, whether he ought himself to start for 
Vienna, and endeavour to carry off his future wife, knight- 
srrant fashion, vi el arniis, or wait for two or three days 
longer, to learn the result of the British minister's inter- 
ference, which he knew was in progress. It was urged 



156 SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE. 

upon him, and he could not deny the force of the reason- 
ing, that he ought at all events to wait till the 23d, the 
return of post to the official application; and there was a 
possibility that the lady might arrive at Frankfort by that 
time,,in which case all minor difficulties would be at an 
end. 

In that event they could be married on the 24th; for a 
clergyman w^ho happened to be passing, consented to wait 
a few days, and held himself ready to clench the bolt 
which was at last to bind these true hearts together. If 
this could be effected, they might still reach London by 
the 29th or 30th, and thus save their passage, by arriving 
at Portsmouth before the first of July. 

On the other hand it was pointed out to him, that even 
setting aside the possibility, or rather very great proba- 
bility of his passing the lady on the road (in which case 
his journey to Vienna would be worse than useless,) he 
could not be back atFrankfoiit before the end'of the month, 
and thus inevitably would be too late for the impatient 
Fairy Queen. 

The disadvantages attendant upon that contingency 
were not a few. In the first place, he would lose his de- 
posited passage money; in the second, which was worse, 
he would incur the displeasure of the Foreign Office; and 
in the third — besides in some degree breaking faith with 
the generous Bishop of London — he would certainly fail 
to meet the Bishop of Madras, as had been arranged, and 
thus his ordination could not take place. These formi- 
dable considerations, placed in their naked truth before 
him, like the technical explanations of a surgeon on the 
necessity of an amputation, opened the poor patient's eyes 
to the precarious nature of his position, and with what 
fortitude he could muster, he agreed to wait at Frankfort 
till the 23d of the month. 

But when the 23d arrived there arrived no lady; and 
what was totally inexplicable, no letter! Our hero, now 
grown quite desperate, broke away from all his reasonable 
friends, hired a carriage, and on that very evening started 
post 'for Vienna, with the pleasant prospect of being ac- 
companied in his rattling vehicle by no better companions 
than his own harassing thoughts, for four days and four 



SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE. 157 

nights, before there was a possibility of his anxiety being 
relieved. 

Fortunately he had sufficient rationality left before he 
started, to write a few lines to the captain of the ship, to 
state in what a wretched predicament he was placed, and 
to entreat him if he possibly could, to wait a little longer. 
^^ If you cannot," added he, "I must of course forfeit my 
passage money, put my character in hazard, at all events, 
for prudence and propriety; and perhaps sacrifice all my 
prospects in life." 

Nothing was heard either of the lady or of the gentle- 
man for eight days; that is to say, until the first of July, 
the very day on which, had things gone right, they ought 
to have been bounding over the waves on board the good 
ship Fairy Queen. 

In the evening of that eventful day, the lady and her 
mother arrived at Frankfort in goocl health, but almost 
expiring with fatigue. She had seen nothing, and heard 
nothing of her lover, and immeasurably was her disap- 
pointment not to find him at Frankfort. 

It appeared that the ladies, having grown desperate at 
the barbarous and unjustifiable treatment of the manager 
of the theatre, to whom an ample compensation had been 
offered, resolved to have recourse to stratagem; and as 
there is a perseverance in the German character which, 
when stimulated by a generous motive, overcomes every 
obstacle not absolutely insuperable, these two unassisted 
females managed to elude even the proverbial vigilance of 
the Austrian police, though fully on the alert! 

Having observed that a visitor of their landlord's was 
somewhat moved by witnessing their distress, they pre- 
vailed upon hmi to assist them in hiring a large cart, drawn 
by four oxen, which they ordered to be ready for them 
on the high-road at nine o'clock in the evening of the 
24th — just one day after poor Bertrand was posting along 
to their rescue in the opposite direction. This cart be- 
longed to a set of smugglers, who for a round sum of mo- 
ney, consented to place it at the disposal of the ladies, or 
to convey them in it to the frontiers of Bavaria. 

A little before nine o'clock, accordingly, the ladies 
stepped out as if to take a walk in the Prater, and as they 

14* 



158 SACRED AND PROPANE LOVE. 

carried nothing with them but their purses and parasols, 
no suspicion was excited, and they succeeded in mounting 
the wagon unobserved. Once there, they were speedily 
concealed under some straw which had been provided for 
the occasion; and as a mattrass was placed at the bottom, 
and an awning drawn overhead, they were not very un- 
comfortably circumstanced. As the quickest posting in 
Germany tries the patience of the most easy going tra- 
vellers, we may figure to ourselves the agony of a young 
lady flying to join her lover in a broad-wheeled wagon, 
drawn by four oxen, and moving at a foot's pace; and 
their misery must have been not a little augmented by 
knowing how readily they might have been overtaken 
should the secret of their mode of escape have leaked out. 

Nothing occurred, however, to disturb them till they 
came within a few hundred yards of the Bavarian fron- 
tier, when, as they had no passports, they were filled with 
fears of being stopped by the gens d'armes. It then oc- 
curred to them that the best way to avoid exciting sus- 
picion, as the wagon was sure to be searched, was to get 
out and walk at such a distance before as to imply no con- 
nexion between it and them. In this way, with their 
open prayer books in their hands, as though on a pilgri- 
mage, they passed the dreaded frontier — not, indeed, un- 
observed, but unobstructed, for every one made way for 
the Holy Sisters, and all the men took off their hats out of 
respect, and little dreaming to whom they were paying 
such honours. 

By these devices and various other contrivances, and 
after travelling by the most heterogeneous conveyances, 
and often on foot, for leagues together, they reached Frank- 
fort on the eighth day from the time of their escape from 
Vienna. 

Strange to say, Bertrand arrived also at Frankfort, on 
his return, on the very same evening, an hour before the 
ladies, after having travelled post eight days and eight 
nights, during which interval he had made just twice the 
journey they had gone, and it is certain he must once 
have met them, and once overtaken them. 

His surprise on reaching Vienna to find the birds flown 
was only equalled by his delight to know that they had 



THE FESTIVITIES OF HAINFELD. 159 

escaped, and that they could not he traced. He knew 
well enough the direction of their flight, and in that direc- 
tion he at once turned his horses' heads, — waiting no lon- 
ger in the capital than to strike a bargain with a set of 
woodcutters, to give the iron-hearted manager of the the- 
atre a sound cudgelling. 

The sequel of the story may be easily imagined. The 
course of true love had been well Macadamized by all this 
hammering, and ran smooth at last. A couple of days for 
rest were deemed no more than enough, as all hopes of 
the ship having waited for them were gone. Unfortu- 
nately, too, the clergyman who was to have married them 
had been obliged to leave Frankfort; so they were com- 
pelled to proceed to the Hague, where matrimony crown- 
ed with happiness the hero and heroine of so much truth, 
constancy, and perseverance. 

The mother, handsomely and permanently provided 
for by her son-in-law, returned to her own country, while 
the young couple proceeded at once to London. There 
they learned, to their great joy, that the generous captain 
of the Fairy Queen had consented to defer his departure 
from day to day, in hopes of his young friend being able 
to make out his marriage. By dint of great exertion, 
they arranged all their business in one day, reached Ports- 
mouth in the course of the night, in good time to em- 
bark; and set sail, with a fair wind and joyous hearts, for 
the other side of the world. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

THE FESTIVITIES OF HAINFELD. 

Week rolled away after week at Hainfeld, and the 
longer we staid and the more we saw of the charming old 
Countess the less inclined we felt to brave the cold and 
discomfort of a winter's journey. And though the season 
proved uncommonly mild, we never felt sure how soon 
the frost and snow might set in and upset all our calcula- 



160 THE FESTIVITIES OP HAlNrELD. 

tions. The Countess, who was always on the watch, took 
advantage of these moments of doubt in our minds, and 
never ceased urging us to remain by her. As heretofore, 
also, she laboured incessantly to amuse us, either by get- 
ting pleasant people to come to the house, or sending us 
to visit such of her neighbours as she thought would 
interest us. But after all, her own conversation furnished 
our highest enjoyment, and no portion of every happy 
day was so delightful to us all as that in which we took 
our regular turns by her bedside. 

When the day came which we had last ftxed for start- 
ing, — I think it was the 1st of December, — no one seemed 
inclined to take any notice of it, and of course least of all 
the Countess. And towards the close of the year we 
had, by a sort of mutual agreement, ceased to speak on 
the subject of our departure, and for the time we felt as 
if we had at last found a home after our many wanderings. 

The closing day of the year has extra claims upon my 
attention, as it is my birthday ; and I could say at Hain- 
feld, as I say now, that I do not wish to be one year or 
one day younger. I suppose, indeed, that the precise 
period at which people begin to regret being so old, varies 
with different individuals. I presume that regrets on the 
score of age will be most acute with those who, on looking 
back, see many opportunities wasted which they might 
have enjoyed in their season, but of which they can no 
longer taste w^hen the years are gone in which alone, by 
the construction of our nature, these could have been re- 
lished. 

• I am acquainted with many persons who try to anti- 
cipate these matters, and begin too soon with every thing ; 
but I know still more who are constantly a stage too late, 
who let the seasons of happiness slip past in discontent, 
and never learn how to profit by the present hour. 

I cannot say I have been troubled in this way ; for I 
have enjoyed, to the full, each successive period of my 
life, as it has rolled over me ; and, just as I began to feel 
that I had had nearly enough of any one period, new 
circumstances, more or less fortunate and agreeable, iDCgan 
to start up, and to give me fresher, and, generally speaking, 
more lively interest in the coming period than in that 



THE FESTIVITIES OF HAINFELD. 161 

which had just elapsed. As a middy, I was happy — as a 
lieutenant, happier — as a captain, happiest ! I remember 
thinking that the period from 1815 to 1823, during which 
I commanded different ships of war, could not by any 
possibility be exceeded in enjoyment; and yet I have 
found the dozen years which succeeded greatly happier, 
though in a very different way. It is upon this that the 
whole matter turns. Different seasons of life, like different 
seasons of the year, require different dresses ; and if these 
be misplaced, there is no comfort. 

Were I asked to review my happy life, and to say what 
stage of it I enjoyed most, I think I should pitch upon 
that during which I passed my days in the scientific, 
literary, and political society of London, and my nights 
in dancing and flirting till sunrise, in the delicious paradise 
of Almacks, or the still more bewitching ball-rooms of 
Edinburgh I Perhaps next best was the quiet half-year 
spent in the Schloss Hainfeld. 

What the future is to produce is a secret in the keeping 
of that close old fellow. Time ; but I await the decision 
with cheerfulness and humble confidence, sure that what- 
ever is sent will be for the best, be it what it may. 

The good old Countess, who, as I have mentioned, lay 
in bed meditating how she could entertain us, contrived 
on the occasion of my birthday to get up a little ceremony 
after the fashion of Styria, to do me honour, as she was 
good enough to say. 1 felt much honoured accordingly ; 
the children were enchanted, and all the household were 
made very happy in a rustic way ; whilfe the Countess, 
who superintended the whole in its minutest details, and 
who, in spite of her griefs, was always cheerful, and often 
quite merry, enjoyed the festivities, so far as she could 
see them or hear of them, with all the ardour of a young 
person. 

On the 31st of December, accordingly, as soon as dinner 
was over, the master of the revels and chief manager, 
Joseph, announced to us that the ceremony was now to 
commence ; and we were ushered in all form, through 
the billiard-room, and the little parlour beyond it, into 
the library. In the middle was placed a semicircular 
range of chairs, the centre one of which was a huge, old, 



16^ THE FESTIVITIES OF HAINFELD. 

high-backed, gilt piece of furniture, on which I was de- 
sired to seat myself. The older members of my family 
took post on the right, the younger on the left, except 
the youngest of all, aged a year and a half, who sat on my 
knee; such being considered the place and position in 
which the young Graf, as they called him, was lea'st likely 
to make an uproar. 

In front, and a little on one side, were planted two rows 
of grim looking peasants, each six in number, and facing 
one another, so as to form an avenue for the procession, 
which soon entered. Those on the right hand, the here- 
ditary gamekeepers of the estate, carried ancient and 
curious fowling-pieces on their right shoulders. The 
party facing them, who bore the title of foresters, grasped 
the appropriate w^ood-axe in their hands ; and, moreover, 
each of the twelve bore a blazing torch, which, being the 
only lights in the room, shed a flaring but imperfect lustre, 
over the dark oak pannels and long lines of venerable 
%^olumes of the old castle library. . 

Presently a flourish of trumpets was heard from the 
remote apartments of the suite, which was soon followed 
by the measured tread of fifty rough-shod feet, trampling 
like so many horses^ hoofs over the bare wooden floors, 
whose naked beauties had never been hid by a carpet 
since the mansion was founded by the great-great-grand- 
father of the last of the Purgstalls. 

At the head of the procession came the Verwalter, or, 
as we should call him in England, the bailiff*, or land- 
steward. In his hand he carried a roll of papers, as an 
emblem of his office. He was followed by all the different 
members of the household and of the home-farm, each one 
tearing, in like manner, some symbol of his specific em- 
ployment. 

On reaching the table which stood before us, the Ver- 
walter addressed me in the following speech, which I give, 
together with my answer, first in the original German, 
for the advantage of the learned who are curious in such 
matters, and then in the English translation, for the benefit 
of the unlearned few who may happen to read these pages. 
The Verwalter spoke his speech boldly out ; but I took 
the precaution of reading mine " en Prince f and I must 



THE FESTIVITIES OF HAINFELD. 163 

not conceal the fact of its having been, like other great 
men's speeches, written for me by my ministers. Unlike 
kings, however, in such cases, I got full credit with my. 
audience not only for the thoughts — which really were 
mine — but for the borrowed language in which they were 
clothed. 

The Verwalter's oration was as follows : — 

" Zur Feier des Tages, an welchem ein so weltbe- 
riihmter Mann geboren ward, werden wir von der hohen 
Frau Eigenthiimerinn dieses Schlosses gesendet, auch von 
unserer Seite das Unserige beizutragen. 

" Eriauben Sie uns daher, Ihnen bei dieser festlichen 
Gelegenheit in ihrem Namen, und im Namen der ganzen 
Gegend unsere Huldigung und unsere besten Wunsche 
darzubringen ; und wenn einst Ihr Beruf Sie wieder in 
weit entfernte Lander dab in fiihrt, so nehmen Sie die 
Versicherung mit, dass Sie unser Andenken an Ihre Ge- 
genwart und unsere Verehrung uberall hinbegleiten wird.'^ 

To which I was graciousiy pleased to answer in the 
following words : — 

" Herr Verwalter ! . 

" Ich bin hochst erfreut iiber die giitigen Wunsche 
meiner ausgezeichneten Freundin, der Grafinn von Purg- 
stall, vorzilglich, da sie mir von einem so wissenschaftli- 
chen Mann dargebracht werden. 

" Obschon die verehrte Frau Grafinn leider durch 
Krankheit verhindert wird, dieses Fest durch ihre Ge- 
genwart zu verherrlichen, so ist der Eifer und die Auf- 
merksamkeit ihrer Untergebenen fiir uns so gross, dass 
man uns nicht besser behandeln konnte, waren wir selbst 
die Herren dieses Schlosses. 

" Die Erinnerung an unsern Aufenthalt in Hainfeld 
wird uns uberall hinbegleiten, und mit Dankbarkeit erfiil- 
len. 

" Ich bitte Sie, diese meine Gesinnungen dem ganzen 
Hausgesinde- mitzutheilen." 

These speeches, done into English, are as follows : — 
The Verwalter said to me, 

" The honoured mistress of this castle has commission- 
ed us to celebrate the anniversary of the day on which a 
man so renowned all over the world was born. We are 



164 THE FESTIVITIES OF HAINFELD. 

assembled here in person to contribute as far as we can to 
fulfil this object. 

" Allow us, upon this festal occasion, in the name of 
our mistress, and in that of the whole neighbourhood, to 
offer you our homage, our best wishes, and our assurances 
that, when you shall again be called to distant lands,"you 
will bear with you every where our remembrance of i 
your presence amongst us, and our grateful sense of the 
honour you have done us.'^ 

To which I replied : — 
"Mr. Bailiff! 

"I am highly gratified by the good wishes of my much 
honoured friend the Countess Purgstall, more particularly 
as they are communicated to me by so learned a person- 
age. 

" Although, alas! our most estimable Countess is pre- 
vented by illness from honouring this festival by her pre- 
sence, so great have been the zeal and the attentions of 
all her people to us, that, had we been masters of the 
castle, we could not have been treated with more distinc- 
tion. 

"Wherever we may go we shall ever retain the most 
pleasing recollection of our visit to Hainfeld ; and I beg, 
Sir, you will make our most grateful acknowledgments 
known to the whole household." 

As soon as these speeches were over, all the Countess's 
establishment passed round the library in pairs in review 
before us. Each couple carried something to indicate the 
department to which they belonged. The washerwomen 
carrieda tuba-piece as whitesnow — the woodmen a shining 
hatchet — the gardeners bore a handsome vase in which a 
laurel grew — this they placed on the table before me. 
The cooks in like manner carried a huge cake, and the 
Verwalterin, or Madame Bailiff, presented my little son 
with a bunch of grapes almost as big as himself. The 
maids twirled their brooms — the coachmen flourished 
their whips — and the swarthy blacksmiths of the castle 
handled their sledge-hammers as if they had been models 
in paper — while the masons brought up the rear, trowels 
in hand. 



THE FESTIVITIES OF HAINFELD. 



165 



The following is a list of the persons forming the 
Countess's establishment : — 

PERSONEN 

WELCHE DEN EiNZUG AM 31 DECEMBER 1834 

IN Hainfeld Bildeten. 

Alois Perger, Verwalter. Carl SteinhauHcr, Boamtcr. 

(Landsteward.) (His Secretary.) 

Joseph TraniCr, Richljer von Leitcrsdorf. Franz Auner, liichler von 

(Magistrate of Loiter sdorf.) Gnuiljixig. 

(MagiHtratc of the Village 
of Gneibing.) 
Heinrich Falk, Gcrichtsdienor. 
(Constable.) 



Pepi Bosfli, Kamerjungfer. 

(Femme de Cnambrc to the 
Countess.) 



Marie Stabert, Kochin. 
(Cook.) 

Marie Siodt. 



Juliana Knotz. 

Marie Ernst, 
Conslantia britz. 

Joseph Eibl. 



Valentin Laufer. 



Stubenrnadchen. 

(Under Housemaids.) 
Washcrincn. 

(Wasfierwomen.) 
Maycrhof Magde. 

(Assistants.) 
Gartner. 

(Gardeners.) 
Anton Pamer, Schafer. (Shephertl.) 
? Kutscher. 
5 (Coachmen.) 
) Hauskniiciite, 
5 (House Servants.) 

7 Mayorkncchte. 

\ (Farm Servants.) 



Marie Pereer, Verwalterin. 
(The Landslc ward's 
Wife and House- 
keeper.) 
Nanette Posh, Lehrmadchcn. 
(Cook's Apprentice.) 

Babette Dicher. 



Marie Berghold. 

Constantia Tramer. 
Marie Kershberger. 

Johan Nuss. 

) 

Anton Fink. 

Michel Maurer. 

Johan Mullner. 
Mathias Stess, 
Jacolj Baumkirclier. 
Michl. BrcMii. Zimmer- 

mann. (Carpenter,) 
Augustin Loftcr. 



Joseph Tramer. 

Joseph Meixncn. 
Joseph Amshl. 
Franz Storzer. 
Michl. Greiner, Schmid 

(Smith.) 
Lorenz Zach. Maurer. (Masons.) 

The Butler " Joseph" does not appear in the above 
list, as he was far too great a man to join such a train 5 
while, on the other hand, his rank is much below that of 
the Verwalter. He escaped from the dilemma by acting 
as Master of the Ceremonies. 

I need not add that the evening wound up with a dance 
and a supper, which made the old castle shake to its foun- 
dations with long forgotten gaiety. For until our coming, 
during nearly twenty dreary years, though there had 
been frequent guests within its walls, there had been no 
merriment since the fatal day when the poor Countess's 
son, her only child, and the last of his race, expired in her 
arms, and left her the desolate mistress of the vacant halls 
and innumerable apartments of Hainfeld, once the rally- 
ing point for mirth to all the country round. 

It was in v^in that we laughed and danced or tried to 

15 



166 THE FESTIVITIES OF HAINFELD. 

be merry. The sad absence of our venerable and excel- 
lent friend cast a blank upon every thing, and it was really 
more to gratify her than ourselves that we engaged in 
such amusements. The ceremony just described indeed 
was entirely her ordering ; yet she never rested, or could 
belieyp that we were happy, unless we took more active 
steps to show our contentment. To please her, therefore, 
some friends who live near us, and who had consented to 
pass Christmas and the New Year at the Castle, aided by 
our children's governess, a German lady, and by the 
children themselves, put a play of Kotzebue's in prepara- 
tion. Nothing was thought of for some weeks but re- 
hearsals, dresses, and decorations, and a stranger coming 
in would scarcely have believed that he was in what the 
Countess called a house of mourning. ^^Der Educations- 
rath" was accordingly to have been acted on the last day 
of the year, after the procession of the household and in 
their presence. The little piece above mentioned was 
chosen for our private theatricals, because it included no 
more characters than our party had strength for, and, 
being in one act, was so short that it put no one to any 
grave or great exertion, and promised to keep none of us 
out of bed beyond the sober hours which we had estab- 
lished in our peaceful castle. My eldest daughter, then 
about nine years old, was to take one of the principal 
characters, and the .youngest who was about five and a 
half, was to speak the prologue. 

The whole thing was put in motion by the Countess to 
amuse the children more than the grown up folks. But 
when the day approached, the eldest child took a stiff 
neck, and it was deemed impossible to proceed with a 
play of which the principal performer must have her head 
on one shoulder. The Countess was in despair at this 
contretemps^ and one might have imagined her some 
disappointed young lady, so grievously did she lament 
over the interruption, for such only she had determined 
it should be. With her usual tone of authority she in- 
sisted upon all her friends remaining in the castle till the 
actors were ready, and as they were nothing loath, our 
society held together, and in due season we had our play. 



THE FESTIVITIES OF HAINFELD. 167 

The prologue was spoken with Excellent emphasis and 
pertinent gesture — so quickly do children pick up a lan- 
guage when living amongst people who speak it con- 
stantly. The eldest girl went through her part in the 
play as if, instead of having applied to German only a 
few months, she had been bred and born behind the 
scenes of the Theatre-imperial at Vienna ! The other 
characters were admirably sustained, and the* whole thing 
went off with great and deserved applause. Every mem- 
ber of the household was present, and as many of the 
peasants as the room could hold were squeezed in. Their 
delight of course was extreme ; but not a mortal there, 
either of actors or audience, seemed to enjoy the fun half 
so much as the poor, old, bed-ridden Countess, to whom 
a report of what was passing was made every quarter of 
an hour by some one of the party. At all stages of these 
festivities she mixed in every thing, gave her best advice, 
or issued her commands, even to the smallest details. 
Such indeed was the sort of juvenile excitement of her 
spirits, that we were really glad when these gaieties 
were at and end, for we almost feared she would work 
herself into a worse fever than she already pretty con- 
stantly had, in her intense anxiety to make us all so 
happy that any thoughts of leaving Hainfeld should be 
banished from our heads. This being, as I have already 
mentioned more than once, the grand object of what she 
called " the small remainder of her wretched existence in 
this solitary world. ^' 



168 A CHAPTER OP ACCIDENTS. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

A CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS. 

A LONG while agOj when I was preparing for a voyage 
to China, I asked an old gentleman, well acquainted with 
those countries, to give me some hints for my guidance 
amongst a people so different in manners from those I had 
been accustomed to. The old boy, who seldom said any 
thing without a spice of sarcasm, reflected a moment, and 
then replied — 

" Whenever you kill a Chinese, throw him as quietly 
and quickly as you can into the river V 

The satire here was directed against the absurd laws of 
China, which hold the person who is found nearest to a 
dead body responsible for the death. The effect of this is 
to drive awa}^ all assistance from a person who either is or 
may be thought to be dying — in short, to deprive him of 
help exactly at the time when it miglit be most useful to 
him, or when, if it could not be useful in saving his life, 
it might soothe and cheer his last moments. We laugh 
at the perverse folly of the Chinese, but in civilized Eu- 
rope it is sometimes not much better. At Naples, for in- 
stance, a similar law prevails with that in the Celestial Em- 
pire ; and I remember hearing of an English lady, who 
w^as driving in her open carriage in the most public street 
of Naples, when the coachman was seized with a fit and 
fell back into the carriage ; the people stopped the horses, 
but as not a Neapolitan would come to the lady's assist- 
ance, the man might have died of suffocation from the po- 
sition he was in, had not an English gentleman, who hap- 
pened to be passing, rescued him from his awkward pre- 
dicament. The coachman recovered, and nothing was 
said ; hut had he died on the spot, the gentleman would 
have been " had-up'' as a culprit at the police office, just 
as if he had been in Canton ! 



A CHAPTER OP ACCIDENTS. 169 

A prudent man, therefore, when travelling in foreign 
parts, of which he does not well know the laws and cus- 
toms, will do well either to put his humanity in his pocket, 
or be very careful how he pulls it out. The safest plan, 
no doubt, is to follow the example of the priest and the 
Levite, and pass on the other side of the way. But this 
will not always do, for external and internal reasons which 
need not be stated, and travellers, as well as those who re- 
main at home, are sometimes obliged to stop and act on 
occasions when their indolence or their fears might prompt 
them to pass on as smartly as possible. 

I was taking my usual constitutional walk one day at 
Hainfeld, on the high-road between the castle and the 
village of Feldbach, when I saw two women with dis- 
hevelled locks and wild gestures running towards me. 
On nearing them I heard their cries for assistance, and 
learned that a wretched man, whose wagon (as all car- 
riages are called in that country) had been overturned, 
was lying under it, and was either dead or dying. 

On reaching the spot I found, sure enough, the poor 
knecht, as they called him, lying on his face, with his 
arms stretched out, his head down-hill, and his legs un- 
derneath the inverted vehicle. Although it was only one 
of those light travelling carts with a gig seat fixed in it 
which we see every where, it was too heavy for me to re- 
move altogether. As the man appeared to be dying, 
however, I prevailed on the women to assist me in mov- 
ing the cart a little, and we succeeded at length in getting 
the left leg free. The other we could by no means dis- 
engage for a long time, and I despatched one of the wo- 
men to a house not far off to beg for more masculine aid 
in our difficulty. I at last got out the other leg, and was 
glad to find it not broken. 

My next care was to turn the knecht on his back, and 
then I saw to my horror that his face was as black as my 
boot — his eyes closed, and his mouth full of blood. He 
lay gasping for breath, each inspiration being accompanied 
by a whistling sound between a cry and a groan. I could 
just feel his pulse, and in doing so I found his arm as , 
cold as ice. It seemed evident to me that he was dying, 

15* 



170 A CHAPTER Of ACCii)ENT§. 

My first operation was to slew him round, as we say 
at sea, so as to bring his head up hill, for the' cart had 
fallen over a bank formed by the sloping side of the road 
raised above the flat alluvial plain of the Raab-Thal. I 
was glad to see the poor knecht's face become less black 
in the course of a minute or two, but as he was manifestly 
at any rate not long for this world, I began to think that 
I ought at all hazards to take some steps for bleeding him, 
the only chance for his life. I proceeded, therefore, to 
pull off his jacket, intending to tie up his arm with my 
handkerchief, and to open one of his veins with my pen- 
knife. I did bethink me, I must own, of the scrape I 
was likely to get into if I should fail, and be found by 
the boorish natives with a knife in my hand over the 
dead body of one of their countrymen ! Just, however, 
as I had formed the resolution to make the necessary in- 
cision as well as I could, I espied a gentleman on horse- 
back cantering past, and I thought I might as well hold 
a consultation .before performing my first operation. 

The stranger drew up his horse, gave the bridle to. one 
of the women who stood wringing her hands by the side 
of the dying man, and, before I had time to say a word, 
cast off his hussar's cloak, drew from his pocket a strip 
of linen, bound up the man's arm, whipped a lancet out 
of his pocket, and opened a vein, in' one-fifth part of the 
time it has taken me to relate the matter ! 

I was well content to be deprived of the honour of per- 
forming a surgical operation, and to act as assistant rather 
than principal, especially as I soon recognised in the 
stranger the surgeon of the cavalry regiment quartered at 
Feldbach, who, by strange good luck, had been called to 
visit a patient in the neighbourhood. 

At first the blood refused to flow, and it was clear the 
doctor thought all was over with the poor knecht. Pre- 
sently, however, on relaxing the bandage a little, and 
dashing handfulls of cold water repeatedly in his face, the 
blood began- to stream, and his patient showed signs of 
life. Along with these, indeed, he soon gave convincing 
symptoms of being very tipsy — a circumstance which 
explained the mystery of his overturn. 



A CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS. 171 

By this time plenty of men had come up — the wagon 
Was righted — -the knecht's arm dressed — and no bones 
being broken, he was once more deposited in his vehicle, 
and driven home by the landlord of a public-house hard 
by. The doctor mounted his horse and galloped off, and 
I remained to reap the honours of the field, having got 
credit with the peasants for saving their companion's life 
— a credit which, in spite of all disclaimers, I most unde- 
servedly retained amongst them during the remainder 
of the winter. 

Jt has long been a disputed question amongst naval 
men what it would be the duty of an officer in command 
of a ship to do, in the event of a man falling overboard, 
while in chase of an enemy's vessel of equal or superior 
force. Like many questions, this one, now that it is 
settled, surprises us how any doubt could ever have arisen 
respecting it. But although there can be no doubt that, 
as in the nautical case, humanity must sometimes give 
way to a sterner duty, it may often prove doubtful on 
shore, how far we are called upon to turn out of our way 
to help, or attempt to help those, who have no claims 
upon our time, our attention, or our pockets. 

The story of the Styrian knecht of the black face brings 
another to my recollection, in which the pros and cons of 
this question were practically brought into play, pretty 
much after the style of the parable. 

On the 27th of June, towards the end of a little tour I 
had been making with my wife in the south of England, 
in the summer of 1831, the carriage passed over Shooter's 
Hill. As we drove down the London side of the steep, 
we overtook a wagon, or rather a van, heavily laden with 
furniture, proceeding in a most irregular course, and at far 
too great a rate, with none of its wheels locked. The 
weight was evidently too much for the horses, which, be- 
sides, were sadly misdirected by two men, who appeared 
at a loss what to do, and who were clearly not sober. 

As we passed, I heard a loud shriek or shout, and on 
looking out of the carriage window, I saw one of the men 
lying flat on his face on the road, bawling lustily, and 
moving his legs up and down. He seemed to me to be 



172 A CHAPTER or ACCIDENTS. 

raving in a fit of drunkenness ; but my servant, seeing me 
put my. head out, declared that after the man fell, the 
wheel, he thought, had passed over his arm. 

I ought, of course, instantly to have stopped to have 
ascertained what was the extent of the injury, if any. But, 
in the first place I thought the man was merely drunk ; 
for I readily disbelieved the servant's account, from not 
wishing it to be true. I also, and more reasonably, wished 
to save my companion, who was in delicate health, from a 
scene of pain and misery ; and lastly, I confess I did not- 
much fancy the notion of having a drunken carter with a 
broken arm thrown on my care. Had it been my own 
carriage wheel which had done the mischief, or had we in 
any way, however remote, contributed to the accident, 
there could have been no doubt whatever ; but as we were 
quite guiltless, I let the boy drive on. I satisfied myself, 
that as the man was amongst his own class, he would be 
well looked after, that my interference would do no good 
— in short — in short — like the two travellers in the inimi- 
table parable already alluded to — and which, in its prac- 
tical acceptation, has done such an infinity of good in the 
world — I passed on, leaving the wounded man half dead, 
or whole dead, for aught I knew ! 

After driving about a quarter of a mile along the road, 
I began to say to myself, "This is not altogether the right 
thing; — is this like the good Samaritan ?" 

And the word Samaritan, though I had given it no au- 
dible expression, kept ringing in my ears, as we trotted 
away from the scene, which no true Samaritan would have 
left. After proceeding for some distance, say a couple of 
miles, I became so worried and unhappy that I could not 
sit still, and I felt sure that the remembrance of the poor 
wretch, lying on his face in the dust, would never leave 
my mind. 1 resolved never again to pass such an object 
of distress. But I found that this resolution went no way 
to dissipate the remorse which was fast accumulating in 
my thoughts, and which , dashed with its portion of shame 
for my want of decision as well as of humanity, was dis- 
turbing my peace of mind at a great rate. 

" What is to be done?'' I asked myself impatiently, for 



A CHAPTER OP ACCIDENTS. 173 

I had wrought myself into ^ fever. This question, pro- 
perly asked, was easily answered,— to go back again, surely. 
"But in what way go back?" To drive two or three 
miles over the same road again, merely to ascertain the 
fact of the man being severely and dangerously wounded, 
might have answered no good purpose. And while I was 
puzzling and puzzhng what to do, or rather how to do it, 
we came in sight of the Green Man at Blackheath ; and it 
instantly occurred to me that the people of this great inn 
must be quite familiar with such accidents, and of course 
that they would be able to put me in the way of assistance. 
In answer to my question whether any surgeon lived 
thereabouts, the waiter said, " Oh yes, sir, there is the door 
of Mr. Gemsee's house, an excellent surgeon." Off I ran, 
and was enchanted to find him at home, and quite willing 
to accompany me to the scene of action ; so that in less 
than two minutes the doctor and I were in full swing trot 
back again. 

I could detect, at the distance of more than half a mile, 
a crowd on one side of the road, close to a well-loaded van, 
which, on a nearer approach, I recognised as the fatal cause 
of the mischief. We quickened our pace, under the smack 
of the driver's whip, who took much interest in the whole 
affair. 

A melancholy scene of pain, anxiety, and confusion, 
presented itself to our eyes> as we separated the crowd to 
the right and left, and made our way to the centre. The 
wounded man, all covered with blood and dust, and as pale, 
wellnigh, as a dead person, was supported on a chair in 
front of a neat little cottage, the flowers and shrubs before 
which had been all crushed down by the bystanders. Two 
women, the only persons in the group who appeared to 
have their senses about them, held the poor fellow's arm 
and his head, and bathed his temples with cold water. All 
the rest, about twenty in number, were speaking at once, 
each one suggesting something, but no one acting, or 
knowing how to act. A surgeon had been sent to, they 
said, but he was not at home, and what was next to be 
done no mortal could decide. The man's companion was 
drunk, noisy, and worse than useless, and the help with 



174 A CHAPTER OP ACCIDENTS. 

which the rest of the party were encumbering the sufferer 
only added to his distress. 

I at once took command of the ground under the doctor, 
insisted upon silence, and brushed away the crowd, to let 
the wounded man have room to breathe. The surgeon 
called for a pair of scissors, and slitting the coat and shirt 
from the wrist upwards, exposed the whole arm in a mo- 
ment — a dreadful sight ! 

The wheel had passed over the limb, nearly midway 
between the elbow and the shoulder, crushing the bone in 
such a manner as to produce what is called a compound 
fracture of the worst kind. The doctor and I exchanged 
nods of perfect understanding upon the point that this 
was not a case for field practice, and that our patient must 
be conveyed to the nearest hospital. 

"What is to be done, however,^^ I asked, "in the first 
place ?" , 

" We can do nothing,'^ said the surgeon, " but strap the 
arm across the breast, and convey the poor fellow in a 
chaise to Guy's Hospital in the Borough.'' 

" Very well," I cried, " is there a chaise to be hired 
here, or shall I take him in my carriage ?" 

"Oh," cried out one of the crowd, "I have a chaise and 
pair on the hill here, all ready, and if you choose to order 
it, you shall have it in five minutes." 

In less than that time, and before the surgeon, with in- 
finite care, and no small skill, had gathered together the 
shattered limb, and bound it gently over the man's breast, 
the chaise stood before the cottage-door. Our patient 
being seated, the doctor prepared to take his place beside 
him, assuring me, that he would not lose sight of him till 
he was comfortably lodged, and placed under proper hands. 
Before we parted, however, I wished to give him a fee 
for his professional services ; but this he positively refused, 
and begged that, as I was to pay for the postchaise, he 
might be allowed to contribute his share in the shape of 
attendance. 

As the chaise drove softly away, I turned to the rich- 
looking owner of the vehicle, and asked what I was in 



A CHAPTER OP ACCIDENTS. 175 

his debt. So much for the horses, and so much for the 
tolls, sir." 

"What!'' I said, "will you not, on such an occasion, 
contribute something ? The doctor would take nothing, 
you observed ; I think you might go the length of six- 
pence for the tolls." 

" No, sir, no ; Fll thank you to pay me for the gates. I 
have a right to that, and I'll have my right." 

I next turned to the women, who had taken more trouble 
than all of us put together ; but, though they were evidently 
very poor, they would at first accept nothing ; and it was 
only by my representing to them that their clothes, which 
the poor fellow's wound had stained, would cost a good 
deal to put to rights, that I prevailed on them to receive 
half-a-crown a-piece. 

At all events, the lower classes, said I to myself, are 
more disinterested than the class just above themj but I 
had scarcely spoken when the crowd shoved a man for- 
ward. 

" What do you want?" I asked. 

" I ran up the hill for the chaise, sir." 

" So then," I observed, " you won't even run a couple 
of hundred yards to assist a brother workman, who has 
broken his arm, unless you are paid for your trouble — 
eh?" 

" You told me to go up the hill, and I went," was the 
dogged reply; " so I had another sixpence to fork out." 

On returning to the Green Man, it was necessary to 
water the horses, which had now gone three times over 
the ground between Shooter's hill and the inn. During 
this detention the postillion entertained the assembled 
household, waiters, housemaids, boots, and hostlers, with a 
full, true, and particular account of the carter's shattered 
arm. I motioned to the head waiter to give the narrator 
a glass of beer, and mechanically pinched a final sixpence 
between my finger and thumb to pay for the generous 
draught. But the magnanimous domestic only waved his 
glass-cloth, and declined the payment. The beer, to be 
sure, was from his master's tap; but I thanked him with 



176 A CHAPTER ON ACCIDENTS. 

sincerity; for even the shadow of disinterestedness pleases 
us, when we are in a humour to be pleased. 

Mr. Gemsee, the humane and liberal surgeon who ac- 
companied the wounded man to the hospital, promised to 
write me a note of his proceedings; and accordingly, a 
day or two afterwards, he sent me the following account: 

" Blackheath Hill, July 3, 1831. 

" Dear Ssr, — I have the pleasure to inform you, that I 
saw the unfortunate young man safely to Guy's Hospital, 
and committed him to the care of my friend Mr. Sampson 
Cavey, who is a dresser under Mr. Bransby Cooper. I 
went directly to Mr. Galloway, the assistant-surgeon, hut 
he was from home. Upon my return to the hospital, I 
found Mr. Cavey had written a note to Mr. Cooper, who 
would come immediately. I went to see the poor fellow 
yesterday, and arri happy to say he is doing as well as can 
be expected, and they hope to save the arm. 

" I am your most obedient servant, 

(Signed) " C. Gemsee.'' 

I had it not in my power to visit Guy's Hospital for 
some days; but when I did, I could scarcely recognise in 
the pale and subdued countenance of the well-tended pa- 
tient, the noisy, excited, and half demolished wagoner of 
Shooter's hill. He neither knew me, nor recollected any 
of the circumstances; and when I began to relate them, 
supposing nothing could be so interesting, he looked me 
impatiently in the face, turned his head round, and begged 
in a peevish voice, to be left alone. As he was in admi- 
rable hands, and in no need of any further assistance from 
me, I took no more charge of him. When, however, the 
other, day, I came to write down these notes of the adven- 
ture,! felt some curiosity to know what had become of my 
friend; whether he had lived or died, and especially whe- 
ther or not his arm had been saved. I thought the best 
way to find out was to write to the secretary of Guy's 
Hospital, from whom, by return of post, I received the 
following statement: — ^ 



A CHAPTER OP ACCIDENTS. 177 

*' Guy's Hospital, 24th Feb. 1836. 

" Sir, — In reply to your inquiries respecting William 
Skudder, I find by the books that he came here the 
27th June, 1831, with a badly fractured arm, and went 
out of the hospital on the 29th January, 1832. And on 
the 1 9th February following, he returned, having broken 
his arm again, and left us, 21st May, 1832, since which 
we know nothing about him. 

^* Yours, very faithfully, 

(Signed) "James Browell." 

I insert the above communication chiefly to show the 
accuracy with which the details of these admirable public 
institutions are managed and recorded. May we not rea- 
sonably trace the origin, as well as the voluntary and am- 
ple support of these truly charitable asylums, in a great 
measure, to the beautiful and instructive parable above al- 
luded to? 



16 



178 THE ALARM. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

THE ALARM. 

Shortly after the festivities of Christmas and the New 
Year, which the good old Countess had got up for our 
amusement, she came to see, much to our satisfaction, that 
we really preferred the quiet life of her ancient castle, 
with only herself and our children as company. There 
happened, indeed, to be several little girls in the castle, 
orphan daughters of former dependents on the Countess, 
who proved of infinite use to our children in learning Ger- 
man. Almost every evening these young folks got up 
some piece of their own invention; some scene from Kot- 
zebue's farces; or, what was a thousand times more farci- 
cal, a tragedy. For example, we were one night indulged 
with Schiller's play of William Tell, a piece in which 
there are upwards of forty characters, but our bold theat- 
ricals undertook this splendid tragedy with only four ac- 
tors ! 

The poor Countess lay in her bed and laughed at the 
account of these proceedings, and more than ever encou- 
raged us to sit with her, and read or chat by her bedside; 
and we saw, or thought we saw, that she was gradually 
gaining strength; and though it was obvious to every eye 
that she never could hope to be any thing but a confirmed 
invalid, we had strong reason to believe that the periodi- 
cal accession of illness which beset her every winter, was 
for this season gone past. Under this impression, as Janu- 
ary gradually slipped away on our happy retirement, and 
February began to advance, we considered it right to be- 
think us once more of our journey, albeit we were not 
very anxious to move, and we saw that any such propo- 
sition might half or wholly put an end to our generous 
hostess. 



THE ALARM. 179 

We could not remain in Hainfeld Castle for the rest of 
our lives, however; and, all things considered, we believed 
it right to take our departure while the Countess was in 
tolerable health. But, in order not to give her more pain 
than was absolutely necessary, we carried on our prepara- 
tions quite quietly; we also settled it with ourselves that a 
certain day should at all events form our latest for re- 
maining; but in order to ease off matters, we agreed to 
name an earlier day, and if sorely pressed, as we knew we 
should be, to relax accordingly. Thus we considered it 
well to fix the 15th of March as our nominal day: butthat 
we might be prevailed upon to stay till the 23d, or even 
a day or two later. 

It was accordingly arranged that I should break the 
fatal subject to the Countess on the morning of the 1st of 
March, or as soon afterwards as I might find a good op- 
portunity. I felt, indeed, as if I were about to attempt 
the good old lady's life, and could scarcely screw my 
courage to the sticking point, and at one blow destroy the i 
sole happiness, as she frequently called it, which remained 
to her in this wide and desolate world, which she ardent- 
ly longed to leave, in order, as she often said, to join those 
who had torn her heart away with them. 

Our plan of operation was, that we should start from 
Hainfeld after an early breakfast, with four of the farm 
horses from the neighbouring village. These were to be 
relieved by those of the Countess halfway on the road to 
Gratz ; and thus we hoped to reach that city to dine, and 
yet that we should have daylight enough to reach Feis- 
tritz, the country seat of Mr. Thinnfeld, a most intelli- 
gent and agreeable person, with whom he had formed a 
a great friendship during the winter. There we purposed 
to remain for a few days, and then to go on to Vienna, in 
time for the fag end of the gay season, to which, however, 
we looked with some dread, after nearly half a year's 
rustication at Hainfeld, the most completely out of the 
way corner in the known world. 

Old Joseph, whom a quarter of a century's service had 
made well acquainted with his mistress and her peculiari- 



180 THE ALARM, 

ties, shook his head in silent and prophetical despair, a§ 
we made our preparations ; and for once in his life he did 
not communicate to the Countess what was going on in the 
castle. 

"If you go away now,'' he said orie morning ; " and if 
you take away your darling little boy from the Grafin — 
who reminds her of her own lost child — if you do not 
stay to read with her, and talk with her ; if the children 
no more sit by her bed-side and amuse her with their fun 
and pranks, you'll break her heart. She will never more 
bear to live in this great castle alone ; and there is no 
one in this country to take your places if you go." 

All this was so obvious that every time I came near an 
occasion of speaking to her about going away, the words 
stuck in my throat, and I could not utter a syllable. Day 
by day, too, the little child wound himself closer round 
the affectionate old lady's heart, and bound, as it were^ 
its broken fragments together. He would sit for hours 
* at her feet, or creep up to her pillow, and lay his hands 
fondly on her care-worn cheeks, quite happy to be near 
her. 

Day by day, too, she grew upon all our best affections j 
and as she unlocked her long neglected or wasted sympa- 
thies, and gave vent to feelings which she thought dead, 
and had heretofore considered it almost a duty not to re- 
vive, we felt our obligations not to desert her increase to 
such a degree that we often said to ourselves "we'can 
never leave this spot while our venerable friend lives !" 

On the 24th of February, and happily before we had 
insinuated any thing of our intended, or rather our pro- 
jected departure, the Countess became suddenly much 
worse. She was seized in the night with so violent a fit 
of coughing, accompanied by fever and pain, that we 
feared our doubts and difficulties would be but too speedi- 
ly resolved. She rallied, however, in the day ; and when 
we were admitted she seemed almost as much herself as 
ever. The first symptom of really increased illness was her 
inability to listen to my reading Goethe's Wilhelm Meister 
to her, about noon, one of her favourite amusements. Al- 



THE ALARM. 181 

though I knew but very little of the language^ she insist- 
ed upon my going on, and with the most wonderful de- 
gree of animation explained the meaning of the words 
which I did not understand, or helped me to the meaning 
of sentences of which I knew all the words, but could not 
disentangle the intricacies of the German construction. 

On the 37th of February, I think it'was, she was in the 
midst of one of these explanations, when a fit of coughing 
interrupted the lesson. Next day she sent for me at the 
usual hour, and set me to reading ; but although she 
listened, or appeared to listen attentively, she never inter- 
rupted me. In order to prevent her speaking, I read on 
for about an hour without once pausing, till I observed 
her comfortably asleep. Sleep to her, alas ! was such a 
rarity that I purposely continued my soporific for a long 
time, and at length she awoke much refreshed. She in- 
sisted upon my giving her an account of the impressions 
left on my mind by the story I had been reading. This 
was rather difficult to do. Had I in the same interval 
perused, say one-tenth part of what I had just gone over, 
and very slowly, carefully, and repeatedly examined each 
passage, I might, even without the help of a dictionary, 
have made out the sense pretty well. But as it was, the 
result -appeared like that of a very light, but not uncon- 
nected dream, possessed of a certain vague interest, and 
accompanied by the consciousness that what was passing 
was all visionary. 

In the evening oi that day, the Countess begged me to 
read over to her the same passages,assuring me that I would 
now understand the whole ; but I had scarcely commenced 
before she fell into such violent fits of coughing, that I 
expected to see her expire before me. One fit lasted full 
ten minutes, without intermission, and at each inspiration 
she groaned, or, as she herself said, she barked in such a 
manner, that it was evident her lungs were called upon to 
do more than they were fit for ; and accordingly, at last, 
she gasped for breath as I have seen dying persons do. 
But it passed over. 

On that night she had still a sharper fever than usual, 

16* 



182 THE ALARM. 

and so on, every night worse and worse, till we all be- 
came alarmed ; and it would have been almost impossible, 
if not utterly absurd and cruel, to have spoken of leaving 
her under such circumstances. Some accidental word 
escaped me, however, in the course of conversation about 
the repair of one of my carriage wheels. This threw -her 
into violent agitation, and she cried out, — 

"Oh, do not, do not leave me to die amongst servants ! 
For God's sake stay to close my eyes, and lay me in my 
grave I I must go soon — ^this cannot last long." 

Thus all our intentions of leaving the castle were as 
irresistibly frustrated as if a giant of old had been its 
master instead of a bedridden, broken-hearted, widowed 
lady, the last of an ancient race, long renowned in the 
country of her adoption, which to her had been one con- 
tinued scene of war, misery, and disappointment. 

Things wore on most painfully till the evening of the 
4th of March, when the faithful and affectionate Joseph 
came weeping to me to say that his mistress was quite 
delirious, and that her fever was raging furiously. I went 
instantly to her bedside, but she knew no one. Her 
pulse was at a hundred and twenty beats in the minute, 
and every thing seemed to indicate that her last moments 
were approaching. I visited her many times during the 
night, and seldom entered the room without expecting to 
find her gone. 

Although the Countess had the most profound want of 
faith in all medicines and in all medical men, she allowed 
the village doctor, who happened to be rather a clever 
man, to call every day to see her, more, I believe, that 
she might hear the gossip of the neighbourhood, than with 
any idea of profiting by his professional skill. We sent 
for him of course; but as he,, like most country doctors, 
passed the greater part of every night on horseback, it 
was not till five in the morning that we could catch him, 
and by that time she had fallen into a quiet sleep. 

He at once said that further aid must be sent for, and 
we despatched the carriage to Radkersberg for the most 
eminent physician of those parts. He did not come till 



THE ALARM. 183 

the evening, however ; and, in the mean time, the patient 
recovered so much, that we could scarcely persuade our- 
selves that she had been ill. The Countess listened with 
much interest to all the physician said, answered all his 
questions, begged him to write his prescriptions, and al- 
lowed him go away with the full conviction on his mind 
that she was the most docile of patients, and the steadiest 
believer in the efficacy of medicine. I saw her smile as 
he left the room, and again when I caught up the prescrip- 
tions, and despatched an express with them to the village. 
In my turn I smiled, when, an hour or two afterwards, 
I observed the empty bottles, and remembered her many 
anathemas against the whole family of drugs. She said 
nothing, however; but on passing through the ante-room, 
I learned from her maid that the whole of the medicines 
had been thrown out of the window ! 

But our venerable friend, though she seemed to rally, 
and was certainly in as cheerful spirits as ever, had gotten 
a severe shake. Her nights were passed in coughing, 
high fever, and sharp rheumatic pains ; but in the daytime 
she appeared so well, that it was scarcely possible to 
believe her dying, in spite of her constant assertions to 
that effect. I ventured once, at this stage of her illness, 
to say that I wondered to hear her talking of death, when, 
to all appearance, she segnied as well as we had ever seen 
her. 

<' I think,^' said she, " I must be allowed to be the best 
judge of my own condition. And under the conviction," 
she continued, "that I shall speedily depart, I have written 
a few lines to you on a subject which hangs heavily on 
my mind. Take it to your room, read it, and think upon 
its contents, and afterwards we can talk the matter over." 

I was astonished to find that she had strength to write 
at all; but the handwriting, though a little tremulous, was 
quite distinct. The note was as follows : — 



" My Dear Sir, — " There is a circumstance that will 
require all your skill to rectify, if you have the kindness, 



184 THE ALARM. 

as I trust in God you will have, to place my poor shattered 
head in the grave, where it.ean alone find repose. 

"Advantage was taken of the absence of the family to 
place the bodies of strangers in our vault — (I say our, for 
it is personal property). The bailiff, out of negligence, 
or still worse motive, did not cause so much as one of 
them to be removed. Think of my anguish when, at the 
last awful funeral,* I saw no place was left for my coffin ! 
I am assured that a family now extinct had a vault oppo- 
site to ours. Now, I conjure you, let a coffin be removed 
to the place where it ought to be, and let us three be, as 
we were, and I trust shall be eternally, mingling our ashes 
together. 

" Do not spare money ; all will be repaid to you. It 
will take a day, I believe, to arrange this business. I do 
not think you will understand what I write ; but I shall 
try to explain the thing to you. I am sure Heaven will 
bless dear Mrs. Hall, and your darlings, and you, for all 
your respectable goodness to me.'^ 

I took the earliest opportunity of her being visible to 
assure her that all that was requisite should be done ; but 
I again said I could not see any reason for her thinking 
of such matters just now. She only smiled, shook her 
head, and said, — "You'll see — you'll see." 

It may seem a little shocking, but scarcely can be 
thought strange, that we should have felt a hope at that 
moment that the good old lady's words would come true. 
Yet there surely was nothing but the truest friendship in 
the wish. She was all alone in the world, helpless and 
hopeless. In mind, so far as this life offered relief, she 
w^as without consolation ; while her body was torn by 
almost constant raaking pains, not only without a shadow 
of any expectation of amendment, but with the daily 
experience of things becoming less and less tolerable. It 
waa clear, then, that whenever we went from her — as go 
from her it was evident we must, sooner or later — the 

* That ofher son, in 1817. 



THE ALARM. 185 

poor Countess would once more be left without a friend 
to close her eyes — altogether deserted, like a dismasted 
wreck on the dismal ocean of life. Under such a painful 
combination of circumstances, it was surely not uncharit- 
able to wish that the awful moment should come to pass 
before our other and more imperative duties should carry 
us far from her bedside, and beyond the possibility of 
rendering her any assistance. 



r 



186 THE CATASTROPHE. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

THE CATASTROPHE. 

"I hope/' said the Countess to me one day, "that you 
have given up all idea of moving from Hainfeld for the 
present. You must be as well aware as I am of the turn 
which things have been taking; and therefore I trust you 
will do me the kindness to stay here till I die.'' 

I should mention, that for about a week after the curious 
note about the vault, which I gave in the last chapter, was 
written, the Countess had gradually got better, and she 
was now — that is to say, on the 14th of March — as well, 
according to the report of the people about her, as she had 
been for many years at this season of the year. Accord- 
ingly, it had again come into our heads that we ought to 
be thinking of our departure ; since, for aught we saw or 
heard from the doctor and her attendants, the old lady 
raight still live for years. 

The request, therefore, to stay by her till she died, was 
a little startling ; for if such an engagement were entered 
into, it was impossible to say how it could be fulfilled, 
without much more serious inconvenience than it was 
either our desire or our duty to incur. As the Countess 
spoke in a cheerful and almost playful tone, I replied in 
the same tone — 

" Pray, ma'am, when do you mean to die — for some- 
thing will depend upon that ?" 

The old lady laughed at my taking the matter up in 
this way, and exclaimed— 

" You are quite right- — you cannot be expected to stay 
here for an indefinite period ; and you would be as wrong 
to promise it, as I should be unreasonable to exact it. 
But," added she, in a more serious tone, and after pausing 
a minute or two, "I shall not keep you long. You know 
well how fatal to my happiness this period of the year has 
often proved. The 22d of March is the most unfortunate 



THE CATASTROPHE, 187 

day in my life. My husband expired on that day, four» 
and-twenty years ago, and on that day, I think I may safely 
say to you, that I shall die !^^ 

I looked, of course, not a little surprised. I cannot say 
I was shocked ; for I could scarcely believe the Countess 
in earnest. Before I could muster any words to express 
what was proper on the occasion, she went on— 

" You may very well be startled at such a declaration ; 
but nevertheless you will see that what I say will prove 
true. My apparent recovery just now is all fallacious and 
external — within, the vital principle is fast ebbing away. 
I have been too familiar with disease not to know its 
marks. The hand of death is upon me, and I rejoice to 
find it so. I cannot be more prepared for the awful event 
than I now am ; and I consider that Providence has sent 
you here at this trying season, to minister to my last 
moments. I shall die happy, quite happy, if you are by 
my side to close my eyes, if Mrs. Hall will stay near me, 
and if your little children will cheer me with their smiles 
as I leave the world. I shall then feel not only not de- 
serted, but surrounded by friends. This, indeed, for 
many long years has been my only wish on earth, though 
unaccompanied by the slightest hope of its being gratified. 
How could I expect," continued she, smiling, " that a 
family of my countryfolks would have either inclination 
or leisure to devote themselves to such a blighted vestige 
of humanity as I am ?" 

I assured her cordially, that I and all my family felt as 
she could wish, and that our duty to her was now amongst 
our most binding obligations. 

"Well, then," cried she, "oblige me by staying over 
the equinox. It will come in a few days. Will you 
promise me that ?" 

"Surely," I eaid, "we shall be most happy. We had 
intended," I added, "to proceed towards Vienna about the 
20th ; but we shall not now think of moving, however 
well you may be, before the 30th." 

"Ah !" she sighed, "that will be long enough. Many 
days before that time arrives, you will, I trust, have laid 
me quietly in my grave j and I shall be joined again to 



188 THE CATASTROPHE. 

those beings for whom alone I wished to live, and for 
whose sakes I am so anxious to die.'^ 

From that time forward she never spoke more on the 
subject. To all appearance, also, she went on steadily- 
improving in health, or rather not falling into greater ill- 
ness. The only striking difference in her was that she 
could not read her letters ; but she listened with much in- 
terest to their being read by us ; and she insisted upon our 
resuming our daily readings with her as before her late 
violent attack. She conversed, too, nearly as formerly, and 
related anecdotes with all her wonted animation. 

So complete, indeed, appeared to be her re-establish- 
ment, that, on the 20th of March, I wrote to her friends 
to state that I fully believed air immediate danger was 
past. The post-bag, however, was scarcely closed before 
I was summoned to the Countess's room, where I found 
her in a high fever, and talking incoherently. The letters 
were taken out of the bag, and an express got ready to 
send off the moment the doctor came and pronounced his 
opinion, of which, indeed, we had little doubt. But by 
the time he came, the vigorous old lady was taken better, 
if I may use such an expression ; and having slept more 
soundly than she had done for years, she awoke so much 
stronger and heartier than she had been before, that all 
the world pronounced this to hava been the crisis of her 
illness ; and as that had passed, alLwould go well. So far 
there was an important change — she was left free from 
pain, a situation so new to her that she scarcely knew, she 
said, how to enjoy it sufficiently. 

But all this was no more than the flaring up of the taper 
just about to be extinguished ! The equinox came, and 
found the Countess all but dead. On the 23d, and less 
than twenty -four hours after the time she had herself spe- 
cified, the fatal blow was struck, and our poor friend was 
no more ! 

During the greater part of the J22d, the " day of her 
doom," as she called it, she preserved her faculties entire. 
Her strength, however, was manifestly on the decline, and 
her eyes began to give indication of change. In the mid- 
dle of the day I carried all the children to take a last look 



THE CATASTROPHE. 189 

of their venerable friend who had been so uniformly kind 
to them. On holding up the infant of whom she had been 
so fond, and opening a chink of the shutter to let a little 
light shine on his face, she held out her arms, and ex- 
claimed — 

" Oh, my dear, dear baby, is that you ! How do you do 
my sweet, sweet child ?" 

I held him close to her and made him touch her cheek, 
which he did in his usual gentle way, and when she pres- 
sed his little hand, he looked her full in the face,.^nd said, 
as he was wont to do every evening when carried away, 
"Ta! ta!" 

" Ta ! ta ! my own dear infant," exclaimed the dying 
woman. "You have been a blessing to me this winter. 
God send you may prove as great a comfort to your parents, 
who have been my protectors in my last hour of need." 

I then gently drew the little man back that the others 
might come in front of her. 

"Ah, Eliza ! my dear Eliza ! how do you do ? give me 
your hand my sweet girl. And you, too, dear Fanny 
Emily ! God bless you both. Your society has often 
made me happy. God bless and keep you." And then 
cordially shaking them both by the hand, she looked up to 
the governess, and cried, "Ah, Mdslle. Herthum, how are 
you ? Is it true that you have so kindly taken charge of 
my little boy during his maid's illness? He is a good 
child. But you are generous and kind to them all," 

So saying, she laid her head back, closed her eyes, and 
to these members of our party she never spoke more. 
Nor did they ever see her again alive, except for a mo- 
ment when I carried them to the room next day when 
she was almost gone. I wished them to learn how to look 
upon such scenes with composure, and without feeling 
that mysterious sort of dread of a deathbed which belongs 
to ignorance, and which sometimes prevents persons be- 
ing useful, who, were it not for these imaginary fears, 
might render important services to their dying friends. 

Some hours after she had taken leave of the children, 
when we were sitting by her, and expecting her to go off 

17 



190 THE CATASTROPHE. 

every moment, she opened her eyes, and said, ^^'ith almost 
her usual strength of voice. 

"Yes! — you are always by my bed-side. You have'^^ 
been my protectors and friends, and you will soon have 
to close my eyes. I shall soon be away, and God knows 
how anxiously I pray to be released from this dreadful 
suffering. I die contented, however, when I have yoo 
about me to see me laid 4n my grave, and know that, in 
spite of all the fears which have haunted me for so long a 
time, I qj|aH not be left forlorn and desolate to die amongst 
strangers. You may well be happy to think of the good 
you have done and are doing me." 

After this our poor friend became gradually worse 
and worse. Her pain and cough increased, and during 
the night when we sat by her, though she evidently re- 
cognised us, she could scarcely articulate her words, and 
these were often disjointed, and uttered at long intervals. 
In this way the fatal 22 d of March passed over and left 
her still alive. Not so the 23d; and thus the old lady 
erred only one day in her calculations. 

During the morning she sunk so much that it was only 
by inference we could make out that she still possessed 
her mind. Towards sunset all pain seemed to have left 
her, and she lay, almost for the first time during her ill- 
ness, quite tranquil in appearance, and without uttering a 
groan. Of course we scarcely ever quitted her bed-side, 
and once, I think about seven in the evening, on seeing 
her make an effort to speak, I placed my ear close to her 
lips, but could distinguish no sound besides the fearful and 
well-known death-rattle in her throat. She lay quite mo- 
tionless, and I had not the least idea that she could hear 
what was said, or that she still possessed any of her facul- 
ties; but in order to try, I said to her slowly and distinct- 
ly, and in a cheerful voice — 

" We are all here, ma^am — you shall not be deserted.'' 

Upon which, to my great surprise, she lifted her hand 
an inch or two above the bed-clothes, and when I took it 
in mine and kissed it, I felt her press my hand three se- 
veral times, as much as to say "I understand you perfect- 
ly." I whispered to Mrs. Hall to kiss the Countess's 



THE CATASTROPHE. 191 

hand, upon which she raised it as before, and turning to 
us, opened her eyes, from which all life was not yet fled, 
though very little was left. We felt quite satisfied, how- 
ever, that she was conscious of our being present, and that 
so far as that kind of protection was concerned, for which 
she had so often expressed a hope, she was gratified in her 
last moments. About nine o'clock, when we had left the 
room for a minute, we were suddenly called back by the 
report that our venerable friend was just expiring, and we 
felt grieved that even for a moment we had quitted her 
side. Her hands were now of an icy coldness, and her 
breathing quick and feeble. But the expression of her 
face was so pla&id, and I may say even sweet, that it indi- 
cated a mind and a body at length at rest. I could barely 
feel her pulse, and at eleven o'clock she quietly breathed 
her last; and the noble family of Purgstall, once so nume- 
rous and so renowned in Austria, became extinct. 

The scene in the room was highly characteristic, though 
very different, I suspect, from what generally takes place 
elsewhere on such occasions. The most prominent actor 
of the party was poor Joseph, the Countess's faithful ser- 
vant, in whose arms, in the same bed, eighteen years be- 
fore, her son, her only child, had expired. This aflfec- 
tionate creature, as I have already mentioned, had promised 
his mistress at that time, when deserted apparently by all 
the rest of the world, that he never would leave her while 
she lived — and well he kept his word. Though a hardy 
old soldier, who had served in all the rugged campaigns 
of Napoleon, he was quite unmanned by the approaching 
dissolution of his revered mistress. We could not con- 
sole him, and made no attempt. We gave him the first 
place, however; and, in spite of his remonstrances, made 
hjm take the chair nearest to the dying Countess's head, 
while we sat lower down at the side of the bed. All the 
w^omen who used to be in attendance in turn upon her, as 
well as the cook, housemaids, and others, were assembled 
in the apartment, each with a nicely folded snow-white 
pocket handkerchief in hand, and while some wept from 
affection, and some from companionship, they all went 
through the motions of grief. The men servants of th^ 



192 THE CATASTROPHE. 

house, to the number of a dozen at least, came into the 
room from time to time, and gathered in groups round 
the bed, or stood near the door, but all in silence, and 
without any outward show of sorrow, though I fully be- 
lieve they all felt very deeply. 

The Countess, indeed, was universally beloved by her 
dependents, to whom, on all occasions, she spoke not 
only with gentleness but with respect ; and I heard it 
remarked by one of the oldest amongst them, who had 
grown grey in her service, that she never once addressed 
a servant with the pronoun *^' Du," or thou, which gene- 
ral usage permits to inferiors, but always with ^' Sie," 
which is used amongst equals. In all essential matters, 
she was equally considerate; and in losing her, the 
whole of that part of the country lost a friend on whose 
generosity, in all times of trouble, they could safely 
rely. 

The male domestics whom I have just mentioned, 
were not elegant, brisk fellows, in gay liveries, but 
coarsely clad, rough-haired, labourer-looking men — 
'• Haus Knechte,^' as they are called — truly hewers of 
wood and drawers of water. So that their appearance 
on this occasion, by the side of their dying mistress, 
looked not a little strange. Lastly came the parish priest, 
for although the Countess was a strict Protestant, she 
had always lived on friendly terms with the Roman Ca- 
tholic clergy of the neighbourhood. This gentleman, in 
particular, she had always esteemed ; and Joseph, know- j 
ing how much it would gratify him, as well as how sa- 
tisfactory it would prove to the people on the estate, 
very judiciously suggested his being invited. With 
corresponding delicacy and good taste, the priest did not 
attempt to interfere with what was going on but sat at a 
little distance, as a deeply interested spectator, but no 
more. 

Old Joseph, however, who was a good Catholic, think- 
ing, I suppose, it might do no harm to give his mistress's 
soul a chance, took advantage of my back being turned, 
and stuck a lighted candle into the old lady's hand, a 
few minutes before she breathed her last. I was startled 



THE CATASTROPHE. 193 

by this proceeding, and would have removed the candle; 
but Joseph, down whose cheeks the tears were flowing 
abundantly, beseeched me to let it remain. The effect 
was not a little picturesque, as it lighted up the dying 
woman's face, and showed every change of countenance 
with the utmost distinctness. The lights and shades 
which it cast on the surrounding anxious groups — for 
every one now closed round the bed — were in the high- 
est degree striking, and the moment of our poor friend's 
death might have furnished admirable materials -for a 
picture. 

When all was over, Joseph's grief became excessive 
and uncontrollable : quite forgetting the man, he lifted 
up his voice and wept like a child. Poor fellow ! he 
had lost his best and almost his only friends — by whose 
side he had served with the habitual devotion of a tho- 
rough-bred soldier, during two-and-twenty years of deep 
suffering, and through many seasons of severe trial. For 
the few days preceding 'the Countess's death he had sup- 
ported himself with great propriety, but when he saw 
the breath of life ebbing fast away from his beloved 
mistress, and the intervals between her last faint gasps 
becoming longer and longer, his stock of fortitude was 
completely exhausted — and in spite of admonitory taps 
on the ai^m by one of the attendant maidens, whose feel- 
ings were less excited, he cried bitterly. We stood by 
the old man's side, but said nothing. We respected his 
grief, in which we shared, though in a very different de- 
gree ; for even at that solemn moment, we felt no small 
satisfaction to think that a person so estimable was finally 
relieved from a load of bodily and mental distress all but 
intolerable, and translated to a scene of eternal tranquil- 
lity — there, as she fervently hoped, to be indissolubly 
united to those, for whose sake alone she had considered 
life worth possessing. 

It would be wrong to wind up this history without 
stating what became of so principal a personage as 
Joseph (our Caleb Balderstone) after his mistress was 
gone. 

By one of those unaccountable anomalies in human 

17* 



194 THE CATASTROPHE. 

conduct which — most particularly in the case of wills — 
set all calculations at defiance, the Countess left this old 
and faithful domestic so very scanty a provision, that it 
was scarcely possible for him to exist upon it, especially 
as he was no longer fit for service, and as, moreover, he 
had married while in the Countess's employment, under 
the very natural hope of being amply provided for during 
the rest of his days. 

As soon as the destitute nature of his situation was as- 
certained, I wrote to the late Lady Ashburton, the Coun- 
tess's niece, who was deeply attached to her aunt, and 
who on one occasion, when with the Countess at Hain- 
feld, had owed her life to Joseph's great exertion in pre- 
venting their carriage from oversetting — an overexertion, 
indeed, which seriously and permanently injured his 
health. Her Ladyship, by return of post, wrote not only 
to me, but in the kindest terms to Joseph himself, say- 
ing,''she only waited to hear how much would make him 
perfectly comfortable, before settling a pension upon him. 
This was soon ascertained, and an answer was written. 
Most unfortunately, however. Lady Ashburton died in 
the interval quite unexpectedly, and before the neces- 
sary steps could be taken in this matter. In strictness, 
Joseph had no claims upon Lord Cranstoun, the successor 
to Lady Ashburton's fortune — but, under all the peculi- 
arities of the case, I felt it right to lay the foregoing de- 
tails before his Lordship ; and he at once, and in the 
most generous manner, settled on Joseph the full pension 
contemplated by Lady Ashburton. By this addition to 
his income, the poor fellow has been placed in easy, 
and even affluent circumstances for the remainder of his 
life. 



THE VAULT. 195 



CHAPTER XX. 



THE VAULT. 



On retiring to our rooms after all was over, it was vain 
to think of sleep, and we past most of the remaining part 
of the night in reflecting on the strange nature of the his- 
tory just ended, and which, if it had been feigned, in- 
stead of real, might well have been called too improba- 
ble for belief. Who, indeed, could have ventured to 
calculate that at the close of a life so protracted as that of 
the Countess, she who had been so long without seeing 
th(S face of a countryman, should be attended on her 
death-bed by the son of one of her earliest friends ? — for 
she and my father were very intimate in their 55'outh ; — 
or that, after nearly twenty years of constant anxiety 
and fear, lest she should be left to die amongst servants 
and foreigners, without a friend to close her eyes or cheer 
her solitude, in a far distant region, in which she had 
outlived all the connexions she had formed with the land 
of her adoption, there should at last come to her enchant- 
ed castle a family of her country-folks, as if by the help 
of some good fairy ? Still more strange did it seem that 
any such family should have been at once able and will- 
ing to devote so much time to her, just at the very mo- 
ment required ; or, finally, that they should happen to 
be so exactly suited to her tastes and habits that all its 
members, young as well as old, were capable of contri- 
buting to restore to her, as far as possible, those comforts 
of domestic society of which her own act of expatriation 
in the first place, and then the successive deaths of all her 
new connexions, had deprivied her ! 

It was, moreover, the merest accident in the world that 
the invitation she sent to us, in the most round-about 
way imaginable, should ever have reached us at all. The 
lady through whom it was sent, as I have already men- 
tioned at the beginning of the narrative, had actually left 



196 ^ THE VAULT. 

Rome when the message reached her, and" before she re- 
turned there, we had also left it. It was quite accidental 
our meeting at the inn at Albano ; and there for the first 
time heard of the Countess. It is true that we did know, 
in a vague way, that such a person existed ; but assured- 
ly we had no more thoughts of visiting her than we had 
of visiting the Cham of Tartary ; still less did we ever 
dream of passing six entire months in her castle in Styria, 
of which remote country (except from our school-day 
recollections of books of geography) we knew nothing. 
Even at the time we received the invitation we had 
scarcely a notion that we should ever be able to visit the 
Countess, or even to go near that part of Europe. 

When, however, we did come to the castle of Hain- 
feld, found ourselves very happily established there, and 
saw how greatly we contributed to the Countess's com- 
fort, we began at times to consider seriously what would 
happen when we should be obliged to leave her. Right 
glad would she have been if we had offered to take up 
our permanent quarters with her ; but this, she knew, 
was out of the question, though, as we afterwards found, 
she had often discussed it with Joseph; and once or 
twice she hinted it to Mrs. Cownie, our child's maid, 
during the many hours they were together every day. 

To us she often said, half in joke, half in earnest, that 
she hoped we would stay and see her out, and not desert 
her in her last hours. But as we could detect no valid 
reason for supposing she might not live for years, we 
took great care not to involve ourselves in so vague an 
engagement, having in our minds the proverbiallonge- 
vity of old ladies. As the periods which we successively 
named for our departure approached we became more 
sensible of our affection and respect for her; and the 
more of course we dreaded the baneful effect which our 
abandoning her might have. At these moments, I ani 
half ashamed to own, it irresistibly occurred to our minds 
that the best possible thing the good lady could do, both 
for her own comfort and for that even of her most attach- 
ed friends, would be to slip quietly out of the world, as 
soon as might be. We did not, indeed, go so far as to ■ 



THE VAULT. 197 

hint this obliging wish to her ; but I sometimes thought 
she read what was passing in our minds; at least she 
said more than once, ^^ Only wait a little ; wait till the 
equinox comes, and you'll see me go out like a candle 
burned down to the socket." 

But when the strange event actually turned out true 
almost to the very letter — we could not help half feeling 
that we had been somehow partiesHo the act of remov- 
ing our excellent friend from the world ! And I was 
rather annoyed with myself when I found I could not 
lay my hand on my heart and declare that I should have 
been pleased were the Countess alive again, and as well, 
or rather as ill as ever ! 

There came across me, however, many feelings of grief 
for her loss, so bitter that I felt irritated with myself for 
having rejoiced at her death ; and when the hours came 
round at which I used always to take my station by her 
bedside, and read or talk with her, or listen to her lively 
and instructive conversation, and still more when I saw 
her, in my imagination, fondling my little boy, or prais- 
ing my eldest daughter's looks, or laughing at the funny 
remarks of the youngest, or entreating their mother to 
read her another chapter of a Waverly novel, I felt — and 
still feel — the tears come to my eyes, and I deplore her 
loss without any unkind and cold-hearted qualification. 

On the next day, the Countess's body was exposed in 
state in the castle chapel. She was dressed, according to 
the custom of the country, in her best black gown, with 
a plain muslin cap lied round with a broad black ribbon, 
a style of dress which is much less disagreeable than the 
" odious woollen" grave clothes with which we disfigure 
our defunct friends in England. Be that as it may, the 
good old Countess's remains were exposed on a high and 
rather elegant platform in the chapel ; and on the pall 
which covered it were placed the scutcheons of the fami- 
ly, all in a reversed position, indicating, as we were told, 
that the person lying in state was the last of the family ; 
for so busy had death been, that not another Purgstall 
now existed of a race at one time the most numerous and 
flourishing in Austria. 



198 THE VAULT. 

Generally speaking, funerals in those countries take 
place very soon after death ; but on this occasion, owing 
to some technical difficulties about placing the body of a 
Protestant in the Roman Catholic church, the Countess 
lay in state for four days. One of these, the 25th of 
March, happened to be a festival of the church, and a 
bright sunny morning; and this fortunate combination of 
an idle and a fine day brought not only the whole of the 
little world of the Raab Thai, our truly Happy Valley I 
— but all the world of the adjacent villages and ham- 
lets ; so that the road to Feldbach on one hand, and 
to Fahring on the other, presented a continued double 
stream of people coming and going. Many thousands of 
persons visited the castle; and although curiosity may 
have prompted many, sincere respect and affection brought 
the greater number; for though a stranger in the land, 
she was a true friend, not merely to the poor and needy, 
but to all who were in difficulty or distress, however 
caused. During a residence of nearly forty years in that 
country, a considerable portion of which tim^e was -pass- 
ed in a state of fierce war, foreign invasion, all the mise- 
ry of repeated conscriptions, and every kind of military 
violence, from friends as well as foes, she had but too 
many opportunities of exercising her benevolence and of 
relieving distresses which she herself was made to share 
on the grand scale. In those dreadful times the rich and 
the powerful suffer chiefly from the deprivation of their 
wonted luxuries or comforts ; but the lower orders are 
often extinguished altogether ; and we repeatedly heard 
of villages, and even whole districts, which were entirely 
depopulated; first by the effects of the conscription, which 
swept away all the young and healthy ; then by the scar- 
city of food which followed upon the abstraction of the 
working hands ; and, lastly, by those wide-spreading 
pestilences which invariably follow the footsteps of fa- 
mine, especially when urged on by the savage blood- 
hounds of war. 

At sunset of that day, in the pesence of a great multi- 
tude of people, Joseph and I, according to promise, plac- 



THE VAULT. 199 

ed the body of our venerable friend in the iron coffin, 
which, as I have already mentioned, the Countess had 
prepared many years before. We took care to rest her 
head on the bundle of her husband's and son's letters, 
which I have before described, and at her feet we placed, 
according to her desire, a small box, containing, I sup- 
pose, other relics. 

When at length it was time to close the lid, I thought 
Joseph would have expired on the floor of the chapel, as 
he kissed his mistress's cold hands, and on his knees in- 
termixed his prayers for her soul, with passionate ex- 
pressions of his own despair. I was at last obliged to 
take the keys from his hand, and close the padlocks my- 
self. 

Nothing could more forcibly prove the extensive au- 
thority and influence which the worthy old Countess 
exercised, although bedridden, and to all appearance 
helpless, than the stagnant and desolate air which now 
reigned not only in the castle, but over the whole neigh- 
bourltOod. We, too, began to miss her, and to become 
fully sensible of our loss ; and all her kindness, to us_ 
in particular, recurred with painful force. I do not 
know how others felt ; but for my part, I could not help 
being sensible that I had never been half kind enough or 
attentive enough to my aged and generous friend, who 
never for one moment intermitted her solicitude for my 
family. I tried in vain to console myself by the reflec- 
tion, that in all essentials I had undoubtedly contributed 
to her happiness, or rather her peace of mind and tran- 
quillity in her latter days, by acceding to her earnest 
entreaty not to be left to die alone. Yet, after the death 
of our friend, those small neglects of which we are guil- 
ty, even towards persons to whom we are most attached 
— those impatiences of temper — those selfish indulgences, 
in place of sacrifices to the wishes of the people about us, 
and a thousand little nameless faults of omission, if not 
of commission, are apt to rise up before us, and inflict 
pangs of remorse which ought assuredly to be improved 
into good and kind words and works towards those who 



200 THE VAULT. 

are still preserved to us, and in whose case such remorse 
might be a thousand times deeper. 

On the 26th of March, when the requisite permission 
came from the authorities at Gratz, an express was sent 
off to the clergyman of Riegersburg, to know when the 
funeral could take place, and to request that the family 
vault might be opened, and got in readiness accordingly. 
The answer spread dismay throughout the castle, for 
every mortal within its walls knew the late Countess's 
anxiety to be laid by the side of her husband and son. 
The Pfarrar, or parish priest, wrote back word, that the 
vault was absolutely full, and that as none of the bodies 
now placed there could possibly be removed, there was 
no room for that of the Countess ! 

This dilemma, it may easily be supposed, was very 
serious, and it too well justified the poor Countess's fears, 
that there had been foul play somewhere. It was our 
duty, however, to think of a remedy ; and we sat up half 
the night in vain consultation as to what was to be done. 
It was at length decided, on the morning of Friday, that 
Mr. Thinnfeld, a great friend of the Countess's, and not 
only an admirable man of business, but a person of ta- 
lents, good temper, and ingenuity, should set off for 
Riegersburg to try w^hat could be done amongst the 
priests, taking with him only the mason of the Hainfeld 
establishment, a shrewd fellow, who was quite as much 
interested as we were, in the settlement of an affair of 
which he had heard his mistress speak fifty times. 

We had imagined that the Pfarrar was hostile to the 
measure we were so anxious about, and our surprise and 
indignation was great, as the Countess had taken a world 
of pains to conciliate, not only him as the chief, but all 
his parishioners, by building an elegant chapel, and 
erecting a handsome monument in the church, besides 
procuring an artist from Vienna to execute a picture, of 
the most gaudy and flaming nature, of their patron saint, 
which far outshone every other in the church. This 
worthy, I may mention, is called Saint Florian, and it is to 
him that all good Catholics pray when a house is on fire. 



THE VAULT. 201 

The metropolitan artist, with a happy mixture of taste 
and genius, had represented this celestial Higgenbottom 
seated on the angle of a cloud, which looked as hard and 
sharp as any block of Portland stone, with a garden 
watering-pot in hand, extinguishing the flames of a burn- 
ing village ; and the whole being done down (I suppose 
designedly) to the capacity of the country congregation, 
was popular accordingly. 

Mr. Thinnfeld, therefore, was less surprised than de- 
lighted to find that he was received with smiles both by 
the priest and the people ;'and all minor dijfficulties being 
at once removed, they repaired to the vault, into which, 
sure enough, there was not room, as the mason observ- 
ed, to thrust a trowel. After a little reflection and con- 
sultation with the mason, it occurred to Mr. Thinnfeld, 
that although nothing more could possibly be put in, as 
things stood, there was no reason why as much earth, as 
equalled in volume the Countess's iron coflin, should not 
be taken out from below those which were already there. 
To this the obliging priest readily consented, and every 
onp exclaimed, as on the occasion of Columbus and the 
egg, " How simple !" 

To work went the mason with a select committee of 
Riegersburgers, and with closed doors, that the public 
might not be ofiended with these doings. The coffins 
were hoisted up one by one, till the vault, which was 
very narrow, was cleared. A couple of sturdy grave- 
diggers then proceeded to excavate the ground, and be- 
fore midnight the floor of the vault was lowered about 
half a yard. The intrusive coffin was then placed at the 
bottom, while those of the Countess's husband and son 
were brought to the top, and just room enough left for 
that of the old lady, in the very situation upon which, 
as she said, she had long fixed her widowed and broken 
heart ! ■ 

On Saturday the funeral took place. The procession 
was to have started from Hainfeld castle at noon, but 
owing to the slowness which characterises every thing in 
Austria, the preparations were not completed, and the 
whole party under weigh, before one o'clock. 'The body 
in its ponderous coffin, and covered w^ith the pall and 

18 



202 THE VAULT. 

scutcheons, which had evidently seen many a similar 
ceremony, and now hung thread bare to the ground, was 
placed not in a hearse, but on one of the Countess's own 
wagons, as they are called — just a good honest four 
wheeled cart — drawn by four of the farm horses. This 
unpretending equipage headed the procession. Next 
followed about two hundred men bareheaded, and one 
hundred women, the peasantry of the estate, all on foot, 
and marching four abreast, chanting ave Marias and 
Pater Nosters alternately, from time to time in chorus. 
The effect of these simple sounds as the procession 
passed over the hills, and tracked its way through 
the wooded ravines, after leaving the flat valley of the 
Raab, was singularly pleasing. Additional effect was 
given also by the bells of the different village churches, 
which were set a-ringing the moment the procession 
came in sight. And as these hamlets lay pretty close to 
one another on the road by which we passed, for a dis- 
tance of nearly a couple of leagues, we seldom ceased to 
hear one set of bells, before detecting the incipient sounds 
of another, stealing from the dells and forests before us, 
in which the villages laid. 

Behind the female part of the procession came the 
carriage in which we sat, followed about a dozen others, 
filled with the neighbouring friends of the late Coun- 
tess. 

In front of all, as if to lead the way, and just before 
the body, limped along the lame keeper of the castle- 
donjon, I suppose in his capacity of grand marshal ; and, 
what made the matter stranger still, he carried a huge 
lantern in one hand, with a lighted candle in it, and the 
keys of the prison in the other ! As we passed through 
the villages, all the inhabitants flocked to the roadside to 
show their respect to the Countess's memory — for she 
seems to have been equally esteemed at a distance as 
close to her own castle. Our course lay over a steep and 
very rugged, though not high range of hills, and, as the 
road, by necessity, was made to wind round the obsta- 
cles, we got many pleasant views of the procession, as it 
threaded its way amongst the woods. 

Besides the regular tenantry of the estate, there fol- 



THE VAULT. 203 

lowed many hundreds of men and women, and swarms 
of children from all the adjacent villages ; so that the 
whole forest through which we passed seemed alive ; 
and, as these extra attendants upon the procession ob- 
served no order of march, but made short cuts over the 
knolls and across the glens, they gave to the whole some- 
what the appearance of a wild hunting party. The day, 
fortunately, was remarkably fine, and the fresh but calm 
air of spring breatlied health and beauty all around a 
scene which, however solemn in some respects, had no- 
thing melancholy in it. At all events, it was unlike 
most funerals, from being unattended by almost any 
bitter regrets, and widely different from that which had 
passed over the same ground eighteen years before, when 
the poor afflicted Countess followed her child to the 



grave 



On reaching the summit of the ridge, we came full in 
sight of the noble rock and castle of Riegersburg, for 
many ages the country seat and the strong-hold of the 
Purgstall family. As we wound slowly down the north- 
ern side of the hills, we began to hear the bells of the 
parish church at which our solemn march was to end. 
The whole flank of the rock on which the church stood, 
was covered with people. About half way up, the wor- 
thy Pfarrer, surrounded by his assistant priests, met the 
body, and a halt being ordered, the followers, who were 
on foot, were sent in advance, while those who had come 
in carriages got out and took their station behind the 
coffin. The clergymen led the way, and though it ap- 
peared that a point of church etiquette prevented their 
appearing in canonicals, they chanted prayers and hymns 
all the way to the church, while the rest of the persons 
forming the procession sung the responses. In the pro- 
gramme of the ceremony, it was merely specified, 
amongst other particulars which I forget, that the Pro- 
testant friends of the deceased were not to carry torches 
or lighted candles in their hands, and that they should 
not chant any prayers ! These were very easy condi^ 
tions ; and indeed we felt nothing but gratitude for the 
attention, the good taste, the absence of all bigotry and 
unworthy prejudice ;— -in short, the generous liberality 



204 THE VAULT. 

of the Roman Catholic population throughout the whole 
proceeding. 

i ought to have mentioned before, that early, in the 
morning, in the chapel at Hainfeld, I had read the funeral- 
service of the Church of England over the body of our 
departed friend. ' Besides ourselves, there was only one 
old woman in the chapel, who, on my beginning to read, 
gathered up her rosary in great haste, and made good 
speed out of the reach of words which, although we hold 
them to be so very beautiful and impressive, may have 
sounded heretically to her ears, though spoken in a fo- 
reign tongue. 

The crowd in and around the church at Riegersburg 
was so great, that it was not without considerable push- 
ing that we made our way .to the little chapel, beneath 
the floor of which lay the family vault in 'which the 
Countess's remains were to be deposited. The sun, which 
shone brightly into the cluirch, and just reached to this 
corner, lighted up the whole of that part of the scene in 
a manner the most animated and even cheerful. Every 
accessible point, every '^ coigne of 'vantage" was occu- 
pied by the peasantry — even the pulpit was crowded — 
and ihe tops of all the altars held clusters of little grin- 
ning urchins, in companionship with the winged cheru- 
bims and seraphims, in stone, and all mocking, as it w^ere, 
the grim symbols of death, and of the last offices of mor- 
tality going on belov/ them. 

Mean while, a grand " Miserere" was sung by a full 
body of village choristers, in a style as it struck us, of 
much greater simplicity and beauty, and certainly of more 
earnest solemnity, than any of those pompous " falset- 
tos" w^e had heard a year before in St. Peter's at Rome, 
in the presence of the Pope and all his cardinals. 

There occurred some difficulty in lowering the heavy 
iron coffin into the vault, or rather in placing it in the 
right situation. In consequence of the smallness of the 
opening, it was necessary that one end of the coffin should 
be lowered down by means of ropes before the other, in 
order that, after its reaching a certain depth, it might be 
received by the people below, and by them be guided 
into its right berth. So far, all went right ; but when 
the coffin was pushed on one side, and had partially en- 



THE COUNTESS AND SIR WALTER SCOTT. 205 

tered the place assigned to it, and the persons who stood 
above were about to let go their hold of the ropes, the 
men below' called out that their strength was unequal to 
sustain the weight, unless those who held the upper end 
could preserve their grasp of the rings. This, however, 
it was soon ascertained could not be done ; and as no se- 
cond set of ropes had been provided, the dilemma was 
attended with considerable danger to the men at the 
mouth of the vault, who must have been severely bruised, 
if not crushed to death, had those above relinquished their 
hold of the rings. 

A pause of some moments occurred, during which, as 
no one else seemed to know what to do, I ventured to 
take the command, in order to see whether my nautical 
resources might not be brought into play in performing 
the last offices for my venerable friend. 

I rushed forward, therefore, and catching hold of one 
of the ropes which sustained the weight of the coffin, 
and which was made fast to the lower end, rove it through 
one of those rings or handles at the upper end, which the 
people were just about to let go. I pulled the rope smart- 
ly through the ring, during which operation the other 
rope, double manned, supported the whole weight. As 
we had now a rope at each end of the coffin, it was easily 
and gently lowered into its final resting place. 

Thus, as it happened, literally as well as figuratively, 
I complied with the good Countess's entreaty, that I 
" would not desert her at the last, but remain by her to 
close her eyes, and lay her poor old shattered head in 
the grave !" 



CHAPTER XXL 

THE COUNTESS AND WALTER SCOTT. 

I HAVE mentioned more than once in the course of this 
narrative, that some of the most interesting parts of the 
Countess' conversation related to the period when she 

18* 



206 THE COUNTESS AND SIR WALTER SCOTT. 

and Sir Walter Scott were both young ; and when, al- 
though she was considerably his senior, they were great 
friends and companions. At the time I speak of, towards 
the close of the last century, he was received in the most 
friendly terms by the family of the celebrated Dugald 
Stewart, of which the Countess, then Miss Cranstoun, 
and elder sister of Mrs. Stewart, was a member. 

This intimacy led Sir Walter, very early in life, to 
consult Miss Cranstoun about his literary productions, re- 
specting which, it appears that he, with the usual diffidence 
of genius and powers unexercised, felt extremely dis- 
trustful. Fortunately he met not only with sympathy 
and encouragement, but with solid counsel, from a con- 
genial mind, whose sagacity penetrated much sooner than 
the rest of the world through the modest veil which con- 
cealed those talents destined so soon to command univer- 
sal attention. 

There was nothing, however, of a more tender senti- 
ment between them ; and while her interest in him arose 
entirely from an early appreciation of his great capacity, 
and the unrivalled sweetness of his disposition, his 
thoughts and his feelings were pointed, with her entire 
approbation, in quite another direction. 

Unfortunately, the lady to whom he was attached dis- 
couraged his suit, or, at all events, her family did ; and 
in his distress he naturally made Miss Cranstoun his con- 
fidant, and he found in her both sympathy and assistance. 
Her co-operation on this occasiqn, it is true, led eventu- 
ally to nothing, so far as the immediate object aimed at 
was concerned ; but it furnished, accidentally, an inter- 
esting, and perhaps an important incident in the literarj^ 
history of the humble youth, who, while his generous 
friend shortly afterwards banished herself, and was lost 
sight of, speedily rose to be the legitimate monarch of 
modern literature. 

About the year 1793, Burger's extraordinary poem of 
Leonora found its way to Scotland, and it happened that 
a translation of it was read at Dugald Stewart's, I think 
by Mrs. Barbauld. Miss Cranstoun described this strange 
work to her friend ; the young poet, whose imagination 
was set on fire by the strange crowd of wild images and 



THE COUNTESS AND SIR WALTER SCOTT. 207 

novel situations in this singular production, never rested 
till, by the help of a grsimmar and dictionary, he con- 
trived to study it in the original, and she, as usual, en- 
couraged him to persevere, and at the end of a few weeks^ 
application to the German language, he had made out the 
sense, and had himself written a poetical translation of 
that poem. 

One morning, at half-past six. Miss Cranstoun was 
roused by her maid, who said Mr. Scott was in the din- 
ing-room^ and wished to speak with her immediately. 
She dressed in a great hurry, and hastened down stairs, 
wondering what he could have to say to her at that early 
hour. He met her at the door, and holding up his manu- 
script, eagerly begged her to listen to his poem ! Of 
course she gave it all attention, and having duly praised 
it, she sent him away quite happ)^, after begging permis- 
sion to retain the poem for a day or two, in order to look 
it over more carefully. He said she might keep it till , 
he returned from the country, where he was about to 
proceed on a visit, to the house where the lady to whom 
he was attached was residing. 

His friendly critic was already aware of this intended 
visit, and an idea having suggested itself to her during 
his animated perusal of the poem, she lost no time in 
putting it in execution. As soon as he was gone, she 
sent for their common friend, Mr. William Erskine, af- 
terwards Lord Kinneder, and confided her scheme to 
him, of which he fully approved. The confederates then 
sallied forth to put their plan in train, and having repair- 
ed to Mr. Robert Miller the bookseller, they soon ar- 
ranged with him to print a few copies of the new trans- 
lation of " Lenore,'' one of which was to be thrown off 
on the finest paper, and bound in the most elegant style. 

In a few days the book . was ready, and care being 
taken to despatch it, addressed to Mr. Scott, so that it 
should ^arrive at what was deemed the most propitious 
moment, it was placed in the Poet's hands, just as the 
company were assembled round the tea-table after dinner. 

Much curiosity was expressed by the party— the fair 
lady inclusive — as the splendid little volume gradually 
escaped from its folds, and displayed itself to the aston- 



208 THE COUNTESS AND SIR WALTER SCOTT. 

ished eyes of the author who, for the first time, saw him- 
self in print — and who, all unconscious of the glories 
which awaited him, had possibly never dreamed of ap- 
pearing in such a dress. 

Concealment was out of the question, and he was call- 
ed upon by the unanimous acclamation of the party, to 
read the poem, of which, as it happened, none of them 
had ever heard even the name. 

Those who have enjoyed the surpassing delight of 
hearing Sir Walter Scott read poetry, will easily under- 
stand the effect which this recitation of his own earliest 
printed work, under the excitement of such a moment, 
must have produced. Indeed, the only matter of aston- 
ishment is, how any simple maiden's heart could have 
resisted this first wave of the great magician's wand — 
destined so soon to enchant all mankind ! 

But so it was ; and the' only lasting effect of this little 
plot was to increase the intimacy between the young au- 
thor and his friendly critic. It may easily be supposed 
that she was now called upon more frequently than ever 
to pronounce her judgment upon a vast variety of pro- 
ductions, drawn from that boundless storehouse of poeti- 
cal conceptions, which even then was overflowing. 

The Countess's anecdotes relating to this period were 
without number; and I bitterly regretted, when it was 
too late, that I had not commenced at once, making me- 
moranda of what she told us. It was indeed quite clear 
to us, that this accomplished and highly gifted lady, was 
the first person who not merely encouraged him to per- 
severe, but actually directed and chastised those incipient 
efforts which, when duly matured, and rendered confi-. 
dent by independent exercise, and repeated, though cau- 
tious trials, burst forth at last from all control, and gave 
undisputed law to the whole world of letters. 

That I am not singular in this opinion, as to the im- 
portant share which the Countess Purgstall took in the 
formation of Sir Walter Scott's character, I am happy to 
have it in my power to establish, on the best possible au- 
thority — I mean that of Mr. Lockhart, whose biography 
jof his great father-in-law the public are looking for with 
so much well-grounded eagerness. 



THE COUNTESS AND SIR WALTER SCOTT. 109 

The following is an extract from a letter which I re- 
ceived from that gentleman during the winter I spent at 
the Countess's Castle of Hainfeld : — 

" If, when you read this, you be still in the Chateau 
of Sir Walter's old. and dear friend the Countess Purg- 
stall, pray ask her whether she can give me copies of 
letters from Sir Walter at the period of their intimacy. 
He had carefully preserved, nay, bound up hers ; and if 
I had the other part of the correspondence, many points 
now dark would be cleared up. It is obvious that Miss 
Cranstoun had much influence on the formation of his 
tastes and manners, and that she was, in short, the wo- 
man who first took him in hand, and did for him the sort 
of thing, which, until, some fair hand does for us, we are 
all bears ! 

"I should delight in her reminiscences of the suppers 
in Frederic Street, that I have so often heard him speak 
of. 

" Finally, pray ask the Grafinn whether she ever re- 
ceived a long and beautiful letter from Sir Walter, ac- 
knowledging the receipt of a book which was, I conclude, 
the same I once saw elsewhere, viz. her Denkmahl."^ I 
lately found such a letter unsigned and unaddressed, but 
charming. I think it possible that he had forgotten it, 
and that the document now before me is therefore her 
Ladyship's. If so, I shall have the pleasure of forward- 
ing it as soon as I am informed of the fact." 

The poor Countess was much agitated when I read her 
this letter; she had not received any answer from Sir 
Walter Scott to the communication she sent along with 
her melancholy book, the Denkmahl alluded to — and she 
had felt the keenest disappointment at his fancied neglect 
of her at a moment when she was almost overwhelmed 
by domestic sorrow, and when such a letter as he alone 
eould write would have proved-— if any thing on earth 
could — a consolation to her broken heart. 

She was in a corresponding degree delighted, there- 
fore, and she expressed herself beyond measure happy to 

* This is a work in German which the Covintess had published, 
giving an account of her .*husband and son. Denkmahl rneans mo- 
numenti 



210 THE COUNTESS AND SIS WALTER SCOTT. 

hear that her earliest friend, in whom she had so entirely 
trusted, had not indeed deserted her. She made me write 
instantly to Mr. Lockhart, to beg that this precious pa- 
per which Sir Walter had written, but mislaid, should be 
immediately despatched to her. 

It must ever be a source of regret, that the excellent 
old lady did not live to read the letter in question, though 
it was forwarded by Mr. Lockhart, as desired. This 
beautiful and feeling composition, every word of which 
would have enchanted her, poor woman, never reached 
her hands. It was probably tampered with by some of 
the post-offices, through which it had to thread its way, 
across the Continent, to the remote corner of Lower 
Styria, in which the person for whom it was composed 
had banished herself. 

With respect to the other letters of Sir Walter Scott, 
she had a melancholy account to give. She and her late 
4iusband, the Count Purgstall, had for many years busied 
themselves in collecting the original letters of the most 
eminent authors in Germany, with most of whom, in- 
deed, they were in habits of familiar correspondence. 
These letters were carefully arranged, and placed apart 
in a secret drawer of a cabinet in the old library, and 
were considered in perfect security. At the disastrous 
period of the poor Countess's history, when her son died, 
and the estates were laid claim to by a whole host of 
claimants as heirs-at-law, the property, including the 
house and all it contained, were put, as usual in Austria, 
under the charge of the courts of law at Gratz, until the 
rightful owner could establish his claim. This wise and 
salutary regulation is generally attended with the best 
effects, in securing the eventual course of justice, and pre- 
serving the property uninjured, in cases of disputed suc- 
cession. And had the Countess only placed the letters 
in question in the hands of the Commissioners appointed 
to take an account of the property, they would no doubt 
have all been preserved. But^in the agitation and grief 
of that dreadful period, when she was threatened with 
absolute ruin — and when every thing on earth that was 
dear to her had been removed from her — and when she 
was overwhelmed with technical business, she entirely 



THE COUNTESS AND SIR WALTER SCOTT. 211 

forgot these precious documents, along with which were 
all Sir Walter Scott's letters. Nor did she ever think of 
them, till long afterwards, when the irritating law-suits 
by which she was harassed were at an end, and she was 
allowed to sit down in peace — or in such peace as the 
world could then supply to her bruised spirit — on the 
small remnant of the immense family estates of the recent- 
ly obliterated family of the Purgstalls. Having occasion 
to refer to a letter from the great Schiller to her husband 
— she applied her master-key to the secret drawer, and 
lo ! it was empty ! All the papers it contained had been 
stolen, including every scrap of Sir Walter Scott's writ- 

This provoking circumstance, which left her without 
one line under the hand of her old friend, made her even 
more anxious than she would otherwise have been, to 
possess the precious letter he had written her, and which 
had been found amongst his papers after his death. Not 
long before she expired, she expressed a hope that it 
might still arrive in time to meet her eyes before they 
were closed for ever. But it came not — and it is now, I 
fear, irrecoverably lost. Fortunately Mr. Lockhart took 
the precaution to make a copy before he trusted such a 
paper to the dangerous handling of the continental post- 
offices ; and I have obtained my generous friend's per- 
mission to make use of this letter in illustration of the 
character of the late Countess. Its perusal will, I am 
sure, fully bear out all I have said in her favour — for it 
is not in such terms of confidence that Sir Walter would 
have written, under any feeling short of the well-ground- 
ed friendship of a whole life. 

Before giving this beautiful and interesting letter, how- 
ever, it may not be out of place to mention a curious fact 
in the history of the Countess, his early friend, which, I 
think, we established completely. From the accounts 
which she gave of her own independence of character 
and conduct, and the peculiarity of her ways, especially 
of her being always on horseback, and always speaking 
her mind — with other points bordering on eccentricity, 
which she said she could well afford to laugh at in her 
old age, we very early conceived the idea that she might 



212 THE COUNTESS AND SIR WALTER SCOTT. 

possibly have been the person from whom Sir Walter 
drew his bold and truly original character of Die Vernon; 
and when our suspicions were once aroused, we found 
confirmations at every turn. Amongst other things, it 
seemed very odd and unaccountable, that of all the works 
of Sir Walter Scott, the only one which she had not seen 
was Rob Roy ; and upon questioning her as to the cause 
of this, she mentioned that it ivas the only one which he 
had not sent her. Now, on the supposition that the he- 
roine was drawn from her, this is readily to be under- 
stood — but scarcely otherwise. 

Of course, we lost no time in bringing this novel be- 
fore her, and while we read it to her, we carefully watch- 
ed the effects it produced. She was much more deeply 
interested with the story than she had been with that of 
any of the other novels. She took particular interest in 
the descriptions of the scenery ; and vv^ith all that part 
which lies in Cumberland she seemed perfectly familiar; 
and as we read on, she repeatedly exclaimed — '• Oh, I 
know that scene — I remember describing it myself to 
Sir Walter Scott. That anecdote he had from me — I 
know the man that character is taken from,'' and so on, 
through the greater part Of the book. But, what was 
most remarkable, she never once made an observation on 
the character or proceedings of Die Vernon. So com- 
pletely, indeed, were we persuaded, from all the circum- 
stances, that she herself was conscious of the likeness, 
that we felt afraid to take the liberty of speaking to her 
directly upon the subject. Many times, however, we 
dropped hints, and gave her openings, but though she was 
quite communicative on every other point, she was reso- 
lutely silent upon this. And what made her reserve the 
more remarkable was, that v/hen any other of Sir Wal- 
ter's novels was read to her, she let not a single charac- 
ter pass without the minutest scrutiny — and very often 
stopped us to relate other characteristic anecdotes of the 
persons mentioned, and which she said she knew be- 
longed to the same parties from which he had made his 
sketches. 

For the rest, I shall only add, that I cannot conceive 
anv thing more exactly like what we suppose Die Ver- 



THE COUNTESS AND SIR WALTER SCOTT. 213 

non to have become in her old age, than was our excel- 
lent friend Madame Purgstall at seventy-eight. Nearly 
forty years of expatriation, during scenes of war, pesti- 
lence, and famine, with the accompaniment of military 
despotism and civil tyranny, had in no material degree 
damped the generous spirit, or tarnished the masculine 
understanding, which early won the future Great Un- 
known's confidence and regard ; and which, in the meri- 
dian of his power and fame, he afterwards traced in one 
of his most original and striking characters. 

The letter which Sir Walter Scott wrote to the Coun- 
tess is as follows, and I think it will be admitted, that a 
more enviable Denkmahl, or monument, can hardly be 
conceived, than is contained in these simple lines, the 
offspring of a friendship, from which nearly half a 
century of ^separation had taken none of its original 
warmth; — 

« 1S20. 
^■My Dear and much valued Friend, 

" You cannot imagine how much I was interested and 
affected by receiving your token of your kind recollec- 
tion, after the interval of so many years. Your brother 
Henry breakfasted with me' yesterday, and gave me the 
letter and the book, which served me as a matter of much 
melancholy reflection for many hours. 

" Hardly any thing makes the mind recoil so' much 
upon itself, as the being suddenly and strongly recalled 
to times long past, and that by the voice of one whom 
we have so much loved and respected. Do not think I 
have ever forgotten you, or the many happy days I pass- 
ed in Frederick Street, in society which fate has sepa- 
rated so far, and for so many years. 

'" The little volume was particularly acceptable to me, 
as it acquainted me with many circumstances, of which 
distance and imperfect communication had left me either 
entirely ignorant, or had transmitted only inaccurate 
information. 

" Alas ! my dear friend, what can the utmost efforts 
of friendship offer you, beyond the sympathy which, 
however sincere, must sound like an empty compliment 
in the ear of affliction. God knows with what willing- 

19 



314 THE COUNTESS AND SIR WALTBR SCOTT. 

ness I would undertake any thing which might afford 
you the melancholy consolation of knowing how much 
your old and early friend interests himself in the sad 
event which has so deeply wounded your peace of mind. 
The verses, therefore, which conclude this letter, must 
not be weighed according to their intrinsic value, for the 
more inadequate they are to express the feelings they 
would fain conve}^, the more they show the author's 
anxious wish to do what may be grateful to you. 

" In truth, I have long given up poetry. I have had 
my day with the public ; and being no great believer in 
poetical immortality, I was very well pleased to rise a 
winner, without continuing the game, till I was beggared 
of any credit I had acquired. Besides, I felt the pru- 
dence of giving way before the more forcible and power- 
ful genius of Byron. If I were either greedy, or jealous 
of poetical fame— and both are strangers to my nature — 
I might comfort myself with the thought, that I would 
hesitate to strip myself to the contest so fearlessly as 
Byron does ; or to command the wonder and terror of 
the public, by exhibiting, in my own person, the sub- 
lime attitude of the dying gladiator. But with the old^ 
frankness of twenty years since, I will fairly own, that 
this same delicacy of mine may arise more from con- 
scious want of vigour and inferiority, than from a deli- 
cate dislike to the nature of the conflict. At any rate, 
there is a time for every thing, and without swearing 
oaths to it, I think my time for poetry has gone by. 

" My health suffered horridly last year, I think from 
over labour and excitation ; and though it is now appa- 
rently restored to its usuaLtone, yet during the long and 
painful disorder (spasms in the stomach), and the fright- 
ful process of cure, by a prolonged use of calomel, I 
learned that my frame was made of flesh, and not of iron, 
a conviction which I will long keep in remembrance, and 
avoid any occupation so laborious and agitating, as poe- 
try must be, to be worth any thing. 

" In this humour, I often think of passing a few weeks 
on the continent — a summer vacation if I can — and of 
course my attraction to Gratz would be very strong. I 
fear this is the only chance of our meeting in this world. 



THE COUNTESS AND SIR WALTER SCOTT. 215 

we, who once saw each other daily ! For I understand 
from George and Henry, that there is little chance of 
your coming here. And when I look around me, and 
consider how many changes you will see in feature, form, 
and fashion, amongst all you knew and loved ; and how 
much, no sudden squall, or violent tempest, but the slow 
and gradual progress of life's long voyage, has severed 
all the gallant fellowships whom you left spreading their 
sails to the morning breeze, I really am not sure that you 
would have much pleasure. 

" The gay and wild romance of life is over with all of 
us. The real, dull and stern history of humanity has 
made a far greater progress over our heads ; and age, 
dark and unlovely, has laid his crutch over the stoutest 
fellow's shoulders. One thing your old society may 
boast, that they have all run their course with honour, 
and almost all with distinction ; and the brother suppers 
of Frederick Street have certainly made a very consider- 
able figure in the world, as was to*be expected, from her 
talents under whose auspices they were assembled. 

" One of the most pleasant sights which you would 
see in Scotland, as it now stands, would be your brother 
George in possession of the most beautiful and romantic 
place jn Clydesdale — Corehouse. I have promised often 
to go out with him, and assist him with my deep expe- 
rience as a planter and landscape gardener. I promise 
you my oaks will outlast my laurels ; and I pique myself 
more upon my compositions for manure than on any 
other compositions whatsoever to which I was ever ac- 
cessary. But so much does business of one sort or other 
engage us both, that we never have been able to fix a time 
which suited us both ; and with the utmost wish to make 
out the party, perhaps we never may. 

" This is a melancholy letter, but it is chiefly so from 
the sad tone of yours — who have had such real disasters 
to lament — while mine is only the humorous sadness, 
which a retrospect on human life is sure to produce on 
the most prosperous. For my own course of life, I have 
only to be ashamed of its prosperity, and afraid of its 
termination ; for I have little reason, arguing on the doc- 
trine of chances, to hope that the same good fortune will 



.216 THE COUNTESS AND SIR WALTER SCOTT. 

attend me forever. I have had an affectionate and pro- 
mising family, many friends, few unfriends, and I think, 
no enemies — and more of fame and fortune than mere 
literature ever procured for a man before. 

" I dwell among my own people, and have many 
whose happiness is dependent on me, and which I study 
to the best of my power. I trust my temper, which you 
know is by nature good and easy, has not been spoiled 
by flattery or prosperity ; and therefore I have escaped 
entirely that irritability of disposition which I think is 
'planted, like the slave in the poet's chariot, to prevent 
his enjoying his triumph. 

" Should things, therefore, change with me — and in 
these times, or indeed in any times, such change is to be 
apprehended— I trust I shall be able to surrender these 
adventitious advantages, as I would my upper dress, as 
something extremely comfortable, but which I can 
make shift to do without.'' 

The verses above alluded to by Sir Walter, are no 
where to be found, and as they appear never to have been 
written, it was probably owing to this circumstance that 
the letter was not immediately despatched to his friend 
the Countess. He may have kept the sheet open in 
readiness for a moment of inspiration — which moment 
never arrived — and in the mean time, both the letter it- 
self, and the projected verses, may have altogether escap- 
ed his memory. 

Nor is this extraordinary, when we consider the vast 
crowd of occupations which were then gathering fast 
round him, and insensibly preparing that formidable 
catastrophe which ere long totally overwhelmed his for- 
tunes. 

That great and good man — for he was not less good 
than he was great — seems indeed to have prepared him- 
self for the possibility of such a reverse, b)^ contemplat- 
ing the contingency^ with a consciousness of moral forti- 
tude, which it is pleasing and very instructive to know, 
never for one instant forsook him when the season of 
adversity arrived. 

THE END. 



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